


We shall meet again in the morning sun

by iwillpassthis



Series: rage, rage against the dying of the light [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Ancient Greece, Dark Percy, Gen, Post-Canon, Powerful Percy Jackson, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-01-05 18:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 38,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18371225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillpassthis/pseuds/iwillpassthis
Summary: Percy is eighteen when the gods disappear.Percy is not even born when he has to save them.OROf Percy's journey to Ancient Greece. Saving the world is a trial and error process isn't it?





	1. Prologue

At first, there was a thunder. The noise reverberated in the silent night, and people all over the world looked at the sky, some afraid, some amazed by its sheer force. Animals run to their refuges and birds landed in flocks on the nearest trees, waiting for the storm to start.

Then, there was a lighting. One, singular flash of light that for a second enlightened even the darkest corners of the globe. Mortals shivered and blamed the arrival of winter, demigods frowned and wondered what had enraged Zeus. None of them realized, but the gods did.  
And they screamed.

At the end, there was silence.

~~~~~

Percy sat in front of Chiron’s desk, playing with Riptide in his hand, half listening to the conversation a few demigods were having outside the Big House. Something about a stolen sword and a plan of revenge in which he would probably be asked to participate. There had been a time, when his chest was without scars and his mind free of the horrors of war, when he would have given anything to be included in the planning of a prank, when he would have been unable to sleep, not because of nightmares but because of the excitement and the adrenaline flowing through his veins. But now, everything seemed… useless, superficial.

“Percy my boy, thank you for coming. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

Percy looked at him, and Chiron smiled sadly. He wondered if Chiron knew, or imagined how close he had been to just ignore his request and how much he had wanted to just stay _away_ from everything that was happening. But at the end, he had caved in, and he had come, unable to force himself not to care, even after everything.

“Two weeks ago, the gods disappeared,” continued Chiron looking at Percy right in the eyes: “ we do not know where they are or what happened. Olympus is closed and Iris messages do not work anymore. The sun still hasn’t risen from that night, and even the moon is not in the sky anymore. Mortals are saying the apocalypse has arrived: with no rain and no light the plants are dying and the perpetuos darkness is driving them mad. We must do something.”

You mean _I_ must do something, Percy thought. But he couldn’t think of anything that could be done: he had spent endless hours thinking and trying to contact his father, with no avail: the sea was as still as it had never been and Atlantis could not be reached. But maybe Chiron knew something he didn’t. He had lived _thousands_ of years after all.

“You have a theory, don’t you? Or you wouldn’t have called me here, considering how dangerous travelling is with no light and monsters roaming free. What do you want me to do?”

Chiron stared at the desk, and then back at Percy, as if he had needed to organize his thoughts. He looked tired, worn by the pressure of calming the hundreds of demigods that had seeked refuge inside of Camp, where the artificial sun still rose and set and where they could pretend that it was just another normal winter. Percy felt a pang of guilt in his chest: how could he have even _considered_ the idea of ignoring his plea for help? The gods might not deserve it, but those were children, scared, lonely children.

“I have a theory on what could have happened, yes. I think the gods might not be gods anymore.”

Percy stopped the twirling of the pen in his fingers and slowly raised his eyes and locked them with Chiron ancient and tired ones, looking for _something_. Waiting for him to say “It’s a joke! Everything is fine and I wanted to test your reaction!” But the centaur remained silent and Percy had to accept that Chiron may not have been right, but he was _serious_.

“Do you mean that they have been turned human? Mortals?”

“I mean that they are not gods anymore. Maybe they are mortals now, maybe they have been stripped of their powers and imprisoned or maybe their powers just don’t work anymore. The possibilities are endless. What is certain though, is that the world has never been ungoverned before and doesn’t know what to do, since no one has taken their place. This would explain why every natural element has remained unchanged in this two weeks: the sky, the seas, even the earth. The mortals are calling it the apocalypse and they might be closer to the truth than they are aware of.”

Percy looked at him in disbelief, trying to wrap his mind around the idea. It did make sense, but in the same confusing way thermodynamics did when Annabeth had tried to help him studying: it _sounded_ right, but also as if there was something continuously escaping his  
comprehension.

“And do you want me to find them? And to bring them here?” 

Maybe there was some kind of radar. Maybe a satyr would be able to find them in the same way they found demigods. It would have been difficult, but not impossible: the only problem would have been the monsters, but Percy had killed so many that they didn’t even worry him anymore. He had become used to them, in the same way you get used to seeing bags of trash in every street of New York: they were just a part of the landscape that couldn’t be avoided.

“No. Whoever or whatever has stripped them of their powers must be extremely powerful and if he has defeated all the gods you would have no chance. No offence,” he said going towards the library. He took a big, dusty book and placed it on the desk. “but trying to save them directly would just be a suicidal and useless mission.”

Percy shifted in his seat, not knowing what to expect. Several minutes passed, and Chiron was turning the pages of the book so fast that there was no way he was actually reading them. 

“So what’s the plan?”

Chiron rose his face from the pages, as if he had remembered just then that he had been talking to Percy, and slowly passed him the book. It was written in ancient greek, with a thick and black ink and the pages looked very frail, so Percy carefully angled the book towards himself. In the lower part of the page there was an image of a shiny, oval rock and, above it, its description. Percy started reading, but he must have looked perplexed because Chiron started to explain:

“It’s called the Restoration Stone. According to ancient myths, once burned with sacred fire it will be able to… restore. Heal whoever the one who burns it wishes in the depth of his heart. I think it could give the gods their powers back without the need of war. If we were able to get our hands on it… Percy, _imagine_ : no demigods would have to die in an impossible quest to find them, we wouldn’t have to fight. This time, the gods and the world could be saved without thousands of deaths if we manage to find the Stone.”

Percy looked at him, hope flaring in his chest. If it was true, and Chiron omitted many things but never straightforwardly lied, then… then there was a chance to stop the suffering of _billions_ of people. Mortals were resilient and many of them would have found a way to survive in the eternal darkness, but at what cost? He had spent the previous weeks seeing his friends and his family desperately looking for an explanation, and he had felt as useless as never before.

“I guess you want me to retrieve this rock then. Alright. Do you have any idea of where it could be? Or is there at least someone who does?”

Chiron looked at him then, hesitant. He took a deep breath and looked away from Percy, taking the book and walking towards the library again. Percy relaxed on his chair, shoulders hitting the back of the chair: Chiron had called no one else, and solo quest were, in a way, easier. He wouldn’t have had to worry about anyone else and… well, if it went wrong at least he had tried.

“The problem is not where the Stone is, Percy. I know where it is because I have hidden it myself in the foundation of the fountain of Pirene, in the greek city of Corinth.  
The problem is that, afraid of the horrible consequences we could have incurred in if it were stolen,with the help of the gods the stone was secured, not in space, but in time.”

“What does this mean?” How could you bind something to _time_?

“It means, my dear boy, that to be able to retrieve it you _must_ travel back to Ancient Greece.”


	2. Chapter One

“And you swear they wore _this_ ” 

Percy looked at himself in the mirror, and the guy in the mirror (who definitely wasn’t him because he would never wear such a thing) looked back, a playful expression on his face.  
Chiron had engulfed him in a white tunic, a _chiton_ , that ended just above his knees and that was secured in place by an horrible belt that Percy had decided would be the first thing to go once he had reached Greece. But that was not the worst part, oh no the worst part were the sandals: they had a thick, leather sole and the straps covered the entirety of Percy’s feet and ankles, and Chiron had laced them so tightly that he could already feel angry, red marks forming on his skin.

“As I have already explained Percy, your aim is to go unnoticed and to do so you must blend in as much as you can. The less attention you manage to get on yourself, the smoother everything will go. You already know the language so that won’t be a problem and you can blame your accent on being a foreigner. Wear this clothes and keep to yourself and no one will question you.”

Percy gave another glance at the mirror. Chiron was asking him not to put himself in trouble, easier said than done, considering his innate ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had been sure of the quest’s success and in his abilities, until everything started to become _real_. He was actually going to time travel to a place he basically knew nothing about to steal a rock that had been kept safe for thousands of years and his only plan was _act as if you belong._  
Insecurities flooded his mind, dancing around like the silver dots you can see when you move too fast, a chorus of what ifs and perhaps and of a millions of questions he would not have the time to ask: _  
( what happens if I die in the past? will all of you forget me? would my father recognize me if I met his past self?)_

“Percy”

_(what if I fail? what if I take the Stone and then someone steals it from me? would you still love me if I came back different?)_

“Percy, hey look at me. Percy”

_(what if I get stuck in the past forever and I can never see Annabeth or my mother ever again? what if, what if? )_

“Just breathe, just breathe, yes like that. Alright. Percy. Percy come on, look at me. Everything is alright, just breathe, Percy, come on you got this. Look at me.”

Air, air, air finally flooded Percy’s lungs, and he started coughing. Then slowly and painfully he raised to his feet, only then noticing he had fell on the floor. Tears were at the corners of his eyes and he felt ashamed of showing _weakness_ in front of Chiron. He slowly locked his eyes with Chiron’s ones, and instead of the pity he was expecting he only found… was it sadness? Resolution?  
Then the centaur placed his hand on Percy’s shoulder, and he relaxed instinctively: this had to be done and he would not let anyone else risk their life because of him, not again.

“I’m ready to leave,” Percy stated, proud of the fact that his voice didn’t waver one bit, “ and I’m ready to spend all that gold drachmas I know you’re about to give me in some new sandals.”

Chiron laughed and patted Percy’s shoulder before handing him a brownish bag, with drachmas, a change of clothes and a couple of small knives to use in case of emergency. They had decided that he would wear Anaklusmos tied to his waist, since pens hadn’t been invented yet and they didn’t know if it could take any other form, and his Roman tattoo was covered with bandages: the Roman Empire would be founded centuries later but it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Travelling back in time is not an easy procedure Percy, we must be careful. Do you know who the god of time is?”

“I killed Chronos. We are not going to resurrect him”

“Chronos is a _titan_ , you should remember. We do not need him. He commands empirical time, divided into the separate categories of past, present and future. No, we need someone who commands the circular, unbounded time. For him past and present do not exist, everything is the same. He is the one who could help us.”

Percy looked at him, puzzled. He probably wasn’t much famous, since he had never heard of him. He wished Annabeth had been there, because she surely would have known the answer to Chiron’s question. She always did.

“His name is Aion. He’s one of the primordial gods. I can see you still don’t know who he is, and while I think you should have been more focused on my lessons, I can’t really blame you. He doesn’t really get remembered often, not like the others”

Percy looked up, expecting a protest from the sky, then he remembered: there were no gods left to complain about what the mortals said. But if there were no gods, how could this Aion help them? Had Chiron forgotten? He was ready to voice his perplexity, but the centaur was faster:

“He can not help us directly obviously, since he must have lost his powers with the other gods. But there is no need for him to,“ Chiron stated while he opened a cabinet under his desk, “since we can use this.”

He placed a glass case on the desk, and Percy looked at it in horror. Inside there was a gigantic snake, and it looked _very_ old. It wasn’t moving, but as soon as Percy got closer it opened its eyes and the demigod took a step back, looking at Chiron.

“Please tell me it doesn’t have to eat me.”

Chiron shrugged.

“Chiron I’m being serious.”

The centaur cracked a smile and looked at Percy, almost challenging him to think about some other horrible scenario involving him and the snake, but then he must have took pity of him because he started to explain.

“The snake is one of Aion’s sacred animals. This, in particular, is not a normal snake. It contains a portion of Aion’s divinity, of his power. It was brought to me by a great hero many centuries ago and I’ve kept it safe since, hoping I would never need to use it. “ His voice became sad and he added: “But I guess the time has come for the both of us to do something we’ve never done before. You must kill the snake, burn it in fire and ask to be sent to Ancient Corinth. With a bit of luck, you’ll get close enough.”

“Is it that easy?”

Percy was really expecting something more complicated, something… risky. But instead he only had to stab an old, half-dead snake? It was _too_ easy.

“The god’s power in the snake is disappearing slowly, since Aion can not keep it alive anymore. It’s faint and I don’t know if it will be enough to send you back so far, and especially in the right place. You could end up in a completely different time or country, and if this happens…”

He didn’t finish his speech but there was no need for him to. Percy knew exactly what would happen. Since his only ticket back to the twenty-first century was the hope that, once their power had been restored, the gods would feel merciful enough to find a way to make him return, if he failed in retrieving the Stone he would be stuck in the past forever.  
The power of Aion in the snake was a one-way trip, and his return depended on his success.

“I am going to open the case. Take Anaklusmos and cut the head off. The fire is already blazing: when the snake stops moving take it in your hands and place it in the heart of the fireplace. Then recite this: “

“Μεγάλη Aion, με πάει στην Αρχαία Κόρινθο.  
_("Megáli Aion, me páei stin Archaía Kórintho.)_  
Πάρτε μου όπου η πέτρα ξεκουράζεται.  
_(mou ópou i pétra xekourázetai.)_  
Πάρτε μου όπου ζουν οι Θεοί.  
_(mou ópou zoun oi Theoí.)_  
Πρώτο Aion, με πάει στην Αρχαία Κόρινθο.”  
_(Próto Aion, me páei stin Archaía Kórintho.")_

“And then… I will be gone?”

“Not forever Percy. This is not a goodbye. We will see each other again and we will feast in the knowledge of our success. Of _your_ success.”

Chiron opened the case and Percy raised his sword. The snake started moving and the demigod slowly and carefully lowered the sword, until it was touching the animal’s neck.  
_Hesitation will kill you_ Luke had told him on his first day of training.  
There was no space for doubts, only for action.  
This needed to be done.  
Percy cut off the head.

The snake started convulsing and it went on for what seemed hours. When it stopped, Chiron yelled “Now!” and Percy took the now lifeless body in his hands and kneeled before the fire. _Hesitation could kill you but so could remorse_ , Grover had told him.  
He looked back to the old centaur and smiled.

“Farewell, Chiron. May the Fates be merciful.”  
He placed the animal at the center of the fireplace and recited the prayer:

_Great Aion, take me to Ancient Corinth._  
_Take me where the Stone is resting._  
_Take me where the Gods are living._  
_Primordial Aion, take me to Ancient Corinth._

 

The flames became green, then blue, then black.  
The world started to rotate on itself and every landmark disappeared.  
Then there were voices, and they screamed for help.  
( _We are dead, save us,_ they said, _don’t come in_ , they pressed)  
Then there was the beginning.

And at the beginning, there was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I obviously used Google Translate for the Greek part, so I don't guarantee anything ;)  
> Thank you to everyone who reads, leaves kudos, comments or bookmarks!  
> Hope you have a lovely Easter,  
> 


	3. Chapter Two

When writing was invented, people were afraid that the oral tradition of storytelling would disappear. They feared the loss of something that had made their lives more enjoyable, nights less cold and death less scary: they mourned it like a loved one.  
Soon, they realized that writing just gave them the opportunity to tell even more stories: at first, they wrote about their house, their family, their possessions. Then, they started wondering about what made them human - was it pain? was it love? was it reason? - and they wrote about their dreams and their fears in form of tales, because that’s what they had been doing since their ancestors had settled down in those lands.  
And so, history began.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After the world stopped spinning, Percy found himself in a gigantic room. On the walls there were many paintings and mirrors, and rich carpets covered the floor: it looked like the hall of a royal palace or of the house of a noble and everything was so breathtaking that for a second he forgot who he was and what he was supposed to do.  
Then, the voice of a woman filled the silence.

“But Emily, _how_ are we supposed to keep the ballroom enlightened all night with only one thousand candles?”

Percy tried to hide, but he discovered that he couldn’t move: his vision had started to become blurry at the edges and panic rose in his throat when he saw the women entering the room. What was he going to tell them? he tried to come up with a plan but it felt like there was something preventing his brain from thinking.  
The two women entered the hall and Percy held his breath, but they kept talking as if he wasn’t there. _They can’t see me_ , he realized and for a second relief flooded his brain, but then he looked at them, _really_ looked at them and fear rose once again: they were wearing long, voluminous dresses more typical of the nineteenth century than the early ages of greek history. 

_Wonderful_

That bloody snake had only brought him back of a couple of centuries and now his quest had failed before it could even start. He had been stupid he realized looking at the two women chatting about the oncoming evening, to trust some faint power of an unknown god. Not only he had placed his life in the god’s hands, but also the lives of the millions of mortal whose survival depended entirely on the success of his quest. 

He couldn’t give up. He _wouldn’t_ give up.

But he still couldn’t move and with the passing of time is vision was becoming more and more blurry, the voices of the women now just confused sounds in the background of his mind while he desperately tried to come up with something. The only one of his senses that was still working was his smell and Percy focused on it: the most intense smell was the one of the fresh flowers that adorned the room, but there also was a faint odor of fresh paint, of the melting wax of the candles and of… burning wood? He realized that somewhere behind him there must have been a fireplace and suddenly he had an idea: at Camp, the flames had engulfed him and he had managed to travel back in time. It had worked once and it could work again.

He concentrated on the noise of the flames: if he was really somewhen in the nineteenth century, then the gods still had their powers and maybe, _maybe_ , the Aion of those times would be willing to do what the Aion of his time had not managed to do and take him to Ancient Greece. So he did what all humans do when they have no other option, and prayed, and begged every god that he could think of for another chance at the quest he refused to fail.

_Please. Please I can’t fail this. Please give me another chance. Please._

For the first few minutes, nothing happened. Then, Percy felt his knees give out and prepared himself to hit the hard ground: but the pain never came and, instead, all the world became black.

~ ~ ~

_Voices filled the dark silence, praying to forgotten gods and begging long gone entities for mercy. Languages he had never heard floated in his head and while he couldn’t make out the words, the meaning was clear: don’t come here, don’t come here, if you enter you will never leave, you should have never believed him when he said you’d be able to return home, go back now that you still can._

~ ~ ~

From then on, time passed in flashes. He was slowly moving through ages and countries, seeing scenes of every place his consciousness stopped in: he saw the French Revolution, he stopped in some Italian city during the Renaissance and in a dozen of other places he could not recognize. At last, he saw the Colosseum in his full glory.  
Then his body hit the ground and, this time, it hurt.

The first thing Percy noticed was, surprisingly, not the pain but the sand. It was everywhere and it seemed to go on for miles and miles with no intention of ever stopping, painting the landscape with orange and brownish colours so vivid that they didn’t even seem real.  
Percy stood up and looked around himself, trying to figure out if this time he had managed to reach his destination, but nothing around him gave away any sign of belonging to a certain era. There was just sand and so, after securing the bag on his shoulder he started walking, hoping to reach a village before the sunset since he had heard that nights in the desert were particularly cold. But for now, the hot rays of the sun blazed on his skin, the sand tickled his feet and he could hear some birds singing in the distance and feel the lingering of fear in his stomach.  
He had never been this free. He had never been this _alone._

Percy marched for what seemed miles and miles, but it was difficult to understand how much distance he had actually covered, since the landscape hadn’t changed one bit. His feet had started to hurt and he was seriously considering the idea of taking off that damn sandals when he saw smoke rising to the sky, signaling the presence of a village or of, at least, some people he could ask for directions and maybe for a place to pass the night. After all, hospitality was sacred in Ancient Greece, wasn’t it?  
As he got closer to the source of the smoke the smell of roasted meat he thought he had imagined became more intense, and Percy started to _really_ feel hungry. He had been so busy worrying about ending up in the right place and time that he had completely forgotten he still had human, mortal needs like eating, drinking and sleeping, but now that he had kind of relaxed he felt them all at once and he had to force himself to keep putting one feet in front of another.

When he finally reached the village, assuming you could call village a group of a few houses with a small road in the middle, his eyes were immediately captured by a big fire and what seemed like a lamb cooking above it and his stomach rumbled in hunger. But then he noted that next to the fire there were a lots of people, more than what those few houses could contain, who were dressed more or less like him and it was a big relief. Percy felt as if a huge burden had been taken off his shoulders: he could not be certain to be close to Corinth, but at least the era seemed to be the right one. He wasn’t worried about travelling through countries, but he would have had no idea on how to travel back in time again.  
As he got closer, some of the people started to notice him and they shot curious glances to each other but no one moved for a few seconds, until one of the elders stood up and walked towards Percy, who was careful to keep his hands far away from the tilt of his sword, hoping they would understand he wasn’t there to harm them.

“γεια, good evening stranger. You look tired. Why don’t you come sit with us next to the fire and tell us about your journeys? We could use a good story.”

Before leaving, he and Chiron had brainstormed a background story that could sound believable and they had decided he would go by his full name, Perseus: there was no need to use a fake name, since he already had a greek one that wouldn’t raise any suspicions.

He sat by the fire a bit distant from everyone else, and felt dozens of eyes on himself. They had all stopped talking, and Percy wondered how _foreigner_ he must have looked: the clothes might have been the right ones, but his behaviour surely wasn’t the one of a wanderer and the way he carried himself far distant from the one of a farmer.  
For a while they all kept looking at him, in silence, and Percy was about to present himself when the same man who had greeted him before broke the silence.

“We are just a few families of poor farmers, but we are glad to welcome you in our houses tonight and to share with you the few food we have. You have been lucky, “ he said while looking at a young woman next to him, “for today is a day of joy. My grandson, a healthy baby boy, was born this morning and to celebrate I have decided to feast with the meat of my fatter lamb. But tell us about yourself: the desert is harsh where you came from and we do not often have guests.”

Percy felt bad about lying to the man who had been so kind in letting him stay, but he had no choice. He smiled kindly and started speaking, hoping his voice would seem confident enough not to make anyone suspect he wasn’t telling the truth.

“ευχαριστώ, thank you for your hospitality. My name is Perseus and, as you have guessed, I am a foreigner here. I come from very far away, south from here I think, and I was travelling with my family towards the city of Corinth for the wedding of my older sister. Unfortunately, we encountered a group of robbers during the way and I got separated from the rest of my family,“ he said trying to put some sadness into his voice. Then he added what would work as his guarantee of believability in case he was far, far away from Corinth: “ they hit my horse with arrows and I fell down. I must have hit my head and remained unconscious for a while, because when I woke up I was in the middle of the desert and my horse was gone. My theory is that they tried to take me with them to obtain a ransom from my father, but then they must have thought me dead and abandoned my body in the sand. However, I am mostly fine and I fortunately found you before the sun could set.”

Percy stopped talking and looked in the eyes of the people around him, trying to figure out if they were believing him, and he noted that everyone had a sorrowful expression on their faces. He felt glad but then he started to feel guilty about having ruined their joy with such a sad story, so he added:

“But don’t worry. I am going to spend the night here if you’ll be kind enough to let me stay, and if some of you would be willing to tell me were I am and which is the way to go to reach Corinth, I will set foot tomorrow at first light.”

Then, an old woman looked kindly at him and informed him that the place didn’t really have a name: it was just one of the many little villages in a region of Greece called Achaea, a day’s journey north from Corinth, and Percy’s heart filled with joy. He was much closer than he had expected, and this time the smile he offered the woman was genuine and tinted with hope.

“Your eyes are shining.”

A little girl, no older than ten, had come closer to him and poked him in the shoulder.

“Why are your eyes shining?” she repeated. 

“Agatha come back here. Leave the man alone. What have I told you about bothering people?”

“No it’s alright”, said Percy addressing the mother of the girl, and turning towards the child he answered: “my eyes are shining because I realized I’m much closer to reuniting with my family than I thought and I’m happy about it. _Very_ happy. Have you ever been extremely happy about something, Agatha?”

“I was happy when my little sister was born. But then it didn’t rain for a while and she died. And now I’m not very happy anymore.”

Oh. Percy had no idea what to tell her after her admission, but the girl was looking at him waiting for an answer, and she wasn’t crying or anything. She didn’t even look sad and Percy realized that for her and everyone else in this era, it was normal to lose family members because of hunger or sickness.

“I am very sorry Agatha. But I am sure your sister knew how much you and your parents loved her and that she’s now smiling in the Underworld. I lost many people I cared about too, and you know what gave me the courage to keep trying to make my eyes shine?”

He looked at the girl, and when she shook her head he continued: “The knowledge that all the people I loved loved me too, and would have wanted to see me happy.” He looked at the girl and saw a few tears rolling freely on her cheeks, so he continued: “And I can tell you that your sister would be proud to have such a strong older sibling like you, being happy despite the pain she has endured.”

He smiled again at the girl, and she threw her tiny arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Percy glanced at the mother and, seeing her smile, returned the hug, hoping he didn’t smell too badly after the long walk he had done in the blazing sun.  
When the girl broke the hug, a few young men divided the lamb between everyone and Percy noted that his portion was definitely bigger than many others but he didn’t say anything, afraid of offending them by pointing out what had probably been a mistake. Wine flowed freely and Percy listened pleasantly to the chatter of the village people, who were all eager to know more of his life and to gossip about the people of the next village over.  
After a while, the sun had set completely and Percy raised his eyes to the sky: there were thousands of stars, more than he had ever seen and he looked at them in awe. The constellation seemed different from the ones he could see in New York, were the pollution and the artificial lights still prevented the sight of the stars even in the countryside, and he couldn’t stop staring at them. In the background people were chatting and laughing and he could hear the crinkle of the flames somewhere in front of him. He felt at peace like he hadn’t in ages, and for a second he imagined himself remaining there and living in simplicity, far away from the god’s intrigues and the stress of his real life.

“Perseus”

“Yes?” He said turning towards the old man, who he assumed was the head of the village:

“Come with me. It’s late and you look exhausted. You can spend the night in my house, I’ll make you a bed with some straw and you’ll be comfortable, even if I have the impression that in this moment you could fall asleep while standing.”

He smirked and Percy laughed, and if it was a bit louder than necessary it was the wine’s fault and surely not of the fact that it was the first joke Percy had heard after all the fear and the despair he had felt travelling through the ages.  
He let himself be led to a small house and half listened to everything the man was chatting about while he made his bed. He felt at ease, but he knew that he couldn’t afford to let his guard down: the people seemed nice but they were very poor and he knew how desperation could lead people to do bad things because he himself had been in that position the many summer days of his childhood he had spent counting money that were never enough.  
He was still thinking about this when he laid down to his makeshift bed, but all of his good intentions of staying in alert disappeared as soon as he closed his eyes.

He fell asleep in seconds and dreamt of fire burning a city.  
The flames were high and the people screamed in fear and pain and tried to call each other, but the fire was engulfing everything and the screams became louder, and louder and louder until Percy jolted awake. The room was dark and fire was nowhere to be seen.

However, the screams continued.  
And they came from outside the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we're finally getting into the story!  
> As always, thanks to all the ones who read, leave kudos, bookmark and comment!  
> 


	4. Chapter Three

The first time Percy had felt fear, real, paralyzing fear it was in a completely mortal occasion: his third grade teacher had caught him selling candies to the other children and she had screamed at him and threatened him with expulsion, and Percy remembers to have been so terrified he had started crying and hadn’t stopped until his mother had arrived and hugged him tightly.  
The last time Percy had felt fear, real, paralyzing fear had nothing to do with mortals. He remembers the darkness of Tartarus, the yelling of the monsters, the clank of the Door’s chains and, especially, Annabeth’s soft and scared voice while she pointed at the figure of Tartarus himself arriving in front of them. He had let go of his sword that time, and only Annabeth’s presence had given him the courage to pick it up again and face the monsters.

This time, however, he was alone and had no time to think about fear. He gripped Anaklusmos and in a second he was out of the door, not bothering to put his sandals back on. The screams had only intensified and Percy soon understood why: the people were running wildly, trying to protect their children and to take refuge inside the houses that had yet to be destroyed by the angry and bloodthirsty hydra that was crashing crazingly against them, unbothered by the rocks some men were throwing at her.

“Get behind me! Get behind me, all of you!” Percy screamed while putting himself in front of the hydra, who immediately turned his attention towards him, and smiled with all of her nine heads before charging forward. Percy checked quickly if the villagers had actually done what he had asked, but he only managed to see about ten people and hoped that the rest was hiding and not laying dead somewhere.  
He had no time to enquire though, since the hydra had gotten closer and he didn’t want to fight her where he could accidentally harm the villagers, so he raised his sword and run towards her, aiming at the torso. He remembered, from the first time he had fought her, that once cut the heads would regrow unless the wound got cauterized with fire, and so his plan consisted in pushing the hydra as close to the blazing fire as he could. Chiron had repeated him thousands of times not to draw attention to himself, and this had included the prohibition to use his powers unless if absolutely necessary, but Percy couldn’t think of any other plan.  
The hydra kept trying to bite him and to make him fall, but Percy held his ground and slowly managed to arrive close to the fireplace, where a few lifeless bodies laid.

The monster took advantage of his distraction and she knocked him to the ground, close to the fire but not enough to reach it, and Percy felt all the air leave his lungs. The hydra’s heads opened their mouths and were about to bite him when he swung his sword and severed four of them in one hit. He heard the villagers gasp in surprise, or worry, but the hydra was pressing on his lower half and the other five heads were attacking him while the others regrew and he had no time to reassure them he was fine. He started waving his sword and trying to move closer to the fire, but the monster’s weight on him prevented any movement and the more heads he cut the more regrew.  
He hit the hydra once more and he must have hit a sensible spot because she groaned in pain and moved, allowing Percy to roll on the left until he clashed against something warm and soft. He turned his head, perplexed, and locked his eyes with Agatha’s lifeless ones.

From then on, Percy only remembers the battle in flashes. He felt nothing but anger, a dark, consuming anger that left no space for mercy or caution. He remembers putting his hand in the fire to retrieve a log of burning wood, not caring if the people would question him about the absence of a burn, and quickly cutting of all the hydra’s heads and cauterizing the wounds to make sure she would die, but nothing of the way he had actually done that.  
Of the after battle he remembered even less: just people thanking him and the knowledge that the hydra had attacked them only because she had sensed his presence. He had been so worried about thieves that the possibility of a monster’s attack hadn’t even crossed his mind, and he felt incredibly stupid. People, children, _Agatha_ had died because of his presence and he doubted he would ever manage to forgive himself for it.

No one wanted to sleep after that, so while some took care of the bodies, Percy helped the men rebuild the parts of the houses that had been destroyed, ignoring the ache in his legs and the exhaustion that had made itself known as soon as the adrenaline and the anger had dissipated. Soon came dawn, and Percy knew it was time to leave if he wanted to reach Corinth before the night, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

“Go.”

“What?”

“You have helped us already more than you had to. We will be eternally grateful for having saved our village from the monster, and I’m sorry that you were unable to rest. I would invite you to spend another day here, but I can see you eyeing the desert and I know in my heart that it is time for you to go. I will pray Hermes for your safe journey. Now go, Perseus.”

The man smiled and Percy found himself smiling back, despite the guilt swallowing him alive. He retrieved his bag from the old man’s house, thanked him for his hospitality, and after a quick farewell to the villagers that were nearby he started walking in the direction the woman had pointed to him, hoping to be able to reach Corinth without encountering any other monster.

Mile after mile, the landscape slowly changed: shrubs and grass bravely fought the advancing of the desert and Percy hoped this meant that a course of water was nearby. In the distance he could see greenish hills and the idea of having to climb them made Percy even more exhausted than he already was, but he didn’t really have a choice if he wanted to reach the city before nightfall: in fact the woman had told him he could also reach Corinth by walking along the coast, but the road would have been longer and Percy wanted to finish the quest as soon as possible.  
So he kept walking, enjoying the hot rays of the sun he had missed so much during the weeks of darkness he had spent in a moonless New York, and only slowed down when he saw in front of him a young man tending at a handful of sheeps.

“Good afternoon, stranger. I am trying to reach Corinth. Do you know how far it is from here? It was supposed to be a day’s journey but I’ve already walked an entire morning and it doesn’t look like I’m any closer to a city.”

Percy spoke calmly but the boy winced anyway, probably not expecting to meet anyone. He eyed him scared and winced even more when he saw the sword secured on Percy’s waist. The sky started rumbling and clouds gathered quickly above them, but Percy didn’t really pay attention to it, too busy trying to understand what part of his question had scared the boy.

“I’m not here to harm you, “ he said while the sun slowly got obscured, “ I just need to pass from here and, since I come from very far away, I am not very familiar with the surroundings."

At that the boy looked at him and slowly got closer, followed by a couple of sheeps.

"Good afternoon, " he said with a slightly trembling voice, " Corinth is just a few hours of walk from here. But I wouldn't go there right now if I were you."

A slow rain started falling and Percy looked at the sky, surprised by the sudden change of weather.

"Why not now? And who are you, anyway?", Percy asked, harsher than intended.

"I just… have you looked at the sky?" He raised his eyes and put his hand forward, letting the rain hit his palm, then he continued: "The rain will only increase and there will be a big storm. It's not going to be safe to stay outside: come with me and I'll host you for the night."

An eagle flew above their heads and Percy looked at the darkening clouds: he felt like there was something wrong that he couldn't pinpoint. All the encounter had been _weird_ , and he still wondered what had made the boy go from being scared of him to inviting him to his house.

"I can't come to your house without even knowing your name"

The boy smiled and answered: "My name is Ganymede. I'm no one important, really, just the son of a farmer. You, instead, look like a warrior. Are you a soldier?"

Ganymede. Ganymede. The name wasn't new and Percy could swear he had heard it before, but he couldn't remember when. He still felt creeped out by the whole situation, and the rain had started to fall harder and harder.

"My name is Perseus. I'm not a soldier." He added at the boy questioning look. "Are you sure you're not famous? I think I've heard your name somewhere already"

Thunders shook the sky and Percy involuntarily flinched, unbothered by the rain but worried about the possibility of lighting bolts.

"I'm not famous. Come with me, we'll take shelter from the rain and I have some food. Tomorrow morning, if the storm has passed, you'll be able to continue your journey."

It had started pouring and Percy saw flashes of lights in the distance, followed by more thunders. All his clothes were getting soaked and he desperately wanted to say yes to the boy’s offer, but all of his instincts were screaming at him to go as far away from there as possible. Ganymede, Ganymede. When had he heard the name?

A lightning struck the ground close to Percy’s feet and he screamed in surprise, backing away from that spot and going closer to the boy, whose sheeps had retreated a long time ago.

“Perseus come on, it’s not safe for any of us to stay here. Come with me back to my house.”

Percy looked at him, his wet, blondish hair sticking to the top of his head and a worried expression obscuring his light blue eyes. He was much prettier than any of the villagers he had met before and Percy wondered if he could be a god. It could explain why he had already heard the name, but the boy didn’t… _emane_ power.  
The sky rumbled again, and Percy took his decision.

“Thank you Ganymede, but I really need to reach the city before nightfall. I hope we will meet again in another occasion: for now, good luck with your sheeps.”

“No, no. Perseus you _must_ come with me,” said the boy while another lighting hit the ground, “please I don’t want to be alone.”

Percy’s instinct were telling him to run away, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the boy.

“Come with me to Corinth then. I probably have enough money to afford both our dinners.” he joked, hoping to lighten the heavy mood that the storm had set between them. But the boy shook his head, and begged him again to spend the night there.

Another eagle passed above them and Percy decided that it was time to leave, with or without the boy. The clouds had completely covered the sun and it was now completely dark, the only lights being the flashes of lights that every now and then crossed the sky.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stay. I wish you a safe return to your house.”

Percy started walking away, ignoring the boy’s protests and his tentatives to make him change his mind. His instincts had kept him alive for a long time, and he had no intention of defying them thousands of miles and years from his home, even if it meant walking for hours in the darkness and in the pouring rain.

Alright, Percy thought, maybe refusing the offer hadn’t really been a good idea, considering that if he got ill the medicine of the time would probably not have any effect on him. But he had gotten too creeped out by the boy and the sudden change in weather to remain there. The storm probably had had something to do with Zeus: maybe the boy was his son? but he hadn’t threatened him in any way, and he doubted that the god could react in this way every time someone addressed his son, so they probably had some other kind of affiliation. He found himself wishing again for Annabeth’s presence, because she surely knew who this Ganymede was. _I’ll ask her when I return home_ he thought. But together with this thought came a darker one: would he ever be able to return?

He kept walking, only stopping an handful of times to eat some of the bread the villagers had given to him, and after a while the rain stopped and the clouds became more greysh than black, allowing the faint rays of the sun to pass through. It must have been around the time of the sunset, when in the distance he saw a circle of walls surrounding a city.

Corinth, he thought happily. _Finally._  
  
From where he was he could see the farmers slowly leaving the fields outside of the city, wagons full of hay passing through the gates and thousand of fires being lighted inside.  
It was breathtaking and Percy stared at the living city for many minutes, until he pushed his eyes beyond the walls and his heart almost exploded right there in his chest. The Mediterranean was clashing lazily against the shore, the green water reflecting the oranges and the pinks of the sunset, and Percy realized just how fatigued he had been in the desert, so far away from the water. This sea was the most powerful it would ever be, Poseidon at the height of his glory in the city he was a patron of, and Percy felt energized just by looking at it.  
If he closed his eyes and concentrated very hard he could hear the sound of the waves hitting the sand, and he could delude himself that everything would be alright. 

But illusions can’t last forever, and Percy still had a few miles to walk before reaching the gates of the city, so he started to descend from the hill carefully placing his mud-soaked feet where the soil was dryer. He proceeded slowly, since the sun was disappearing quickly and it was getting hard to see, and after a while he realized he wouldn’t make it before the closing of the gates. Fear got the best of him again, and this time Percy had all the time in the world to think about it: he was tired and hungry, his legs hurt from how much he had walked and he could still feel the uneasiness left from his encounter with Ganymede. He had seen the sea and he had loved it, but it wasn’t _his_ sea, the one he had come to know and love: it had been like visiting the previous owners of your childhood house, with walls that held forgotten stories and still didn’t know yours.

Complete darkness now covered everything, since clouds still were in front of the moon and the lights of the city were behind the trees of the small wood he had to pass through. His heart started pounding faster and he took his sword in his hand, creating a bit of light with the faint glow of the blade.  
The walk through the forest was slow and atrocious: every small noise made him flinch and the constant fear of wild animals and monsters was eating him alive. He tripped once, then again, then again and every time he got up slower, cursing the gods and the fates and whatever had forced him to take up on this quest.

When he finally arrived at the end of the wood it must have been quite late. The gates were closed and guards were marching on the walls, a hand on the tilt on the sword and the other holding a torch, making up quite a nice vision. It seemed like being on the set of a movie, with Percy being the only one who had to fake his part, and the thought was so ridiculous that he couldn’t avoid a chuckle.  
Since climbing on the walls was out of the question, Percy looked around himself trying to find a comfortable and possibly safe place where to spend the night, and he set his eyes on the sea. He had never actually slept underwater, but he was too tired to look for another place and he was _almost_ certain that no monster would attack him there.  
So he walked towards the water, feeling better and better the closer he got. The Atlantic had never given him this feeling and Percy’s tired mind marvelled at the idea of living in it. He sent a quick thank you prayer to his father, wondering if he had any mortal children living in the city and if he would recognize him as his son. 

He entered the water and laid down on the sandy sea bed, feeling more alone than ever. He tried to make plans for the next day, but he couldn’t keep his eyes open and the slow movement of the currents was lulling him to sleep. At one point, just before falling asleep, he heard the thoughts of the fishes around him and smiled: they all kept thinking the same thing, and he fell asleep by the sound of their greetings.

_Welcome back home, my Prince._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!  
> Please let me know what you think of this! I'm not totally sure on the action scene...  
> Ganymede was one of Zeus lovers, and Zeus kidnapped him (by turning into an eagle) to make him his immortal cupbearer on Olympus. Nothing Percy should get invloved in, really...


	5. Chapter Four

“So you’re saying that you let an, how old? thousands of years? snake decide of Percy’s life?”

Annabeth glared at him and Chiron flinched. He had known Annabeth would have been furious with him, and even if he knew that he deserved it, he was still bothered by her harsh tones: it’s not like he had liked the idea any more than her, but there hadn’t been any other way.

“Annabeth please sit down. I know you are angry, but let’s not say things we’ll both regret. You know as well as me that Percy was the best suited for this quest.”

Annabeth looked shocked at that. “He was not!” she yelled, “we had just started to heal from our war with Gea, and you forced him to leave his family again. Alone!” she said while going closer to the centaur: “now look at me in the eyes and tell me that you thought that _no one else_ would have survived this quest.”  
Chiron looked at her, her grey eyes full of anger and sadness and betrayal.

“Annabeth-” he started.

“Tell me. Tell me Chiron,“ she said while her eyes filled with tears, “swear to me that I wouldn’t have been better suited for this quest.”

She angrily wiped her eyes and looked at him again, challenging him to answer.

“Annabeth I… you know that I think highly of you, no, no, don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true. Let me finish, “ he said when he saw Annabeth opening her mouth, “ you are one of the most skilled demigods I’ve ever had the pleasure of training. But the snake’s power wasn’t enough for two people and I couldn’t, “ he swallowed, and looked at the grieving girl, “I couldn’t send you by yourself. You are a woman. You would have been in too much danger travelling by yourself and, by greek law, you wouldn’t even be _allowed_ to do so. Meaning that you would have attracted too much attention. I am sorry,” he added seeing that Annabeth was now looking everywhere but at him, “I wish things had been different. But I _lived_ in the world of the past and it wasn’t nice for women. Percy can be attacked by monsters, but men will not bother him just because he’s by himself, and people will question him less. He had more chance to finish the quest… _unharmed_ and so I called him.”

Annabeth stayed silent for many seconds, then her shoulders dropped and she looked at Chiron again:

“Do you really think he will survive it?”

Chiron didn’t say anything. What there was to say after all? No one had ever travelled back in the past and he had no idea of the effect it could have on a demigod. Annabeth looked at him, and he realized that she had already asked herself the same question and was probably hoping to find some kind of reassurance or answer in him. He sighed, preparing himself to have to stop Annabeth from leaving the room, but instead she sat in front of his desk and the words died in his throat.

“Tell me everything”, she said, and Chiron began.

~ ~ ~

When Percy opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the face of an enormous, greysh fish. He looked around, perplexed, before remembering the events of the night before.

“Hello”, he said to the fish.

The animal blinked, without moving.

Percy stared at it, not knowing what to do. Had the fish been there all night long? He hoped not, because that would have been… creepy.

“Well, it’s been nice to meet you Mr. Fish, “ he said while slowly getting to his feet, “but now I kind of have stuff to do in Corinth.”

The fish blinked once, then again. 

Percy blinked back.

The creature seemed satisfied by that, and quickly swam away, leaving Percy in a total state of confusion. Maybe the fish was mute? He would never know. He quickly got to the surface and reached the shore, noting that the sun was already quite high in the sky. He had slept more than he should have had, but he felt rested like he hadn’t in ages.

The city was already in action, people coming and leaving through the gates and farmers working in the sunny fields. He slowly walked towards the wide entrance, taking the time to look around himself: he knew, as everyone does, that people had always been people, living and laughing and working since the dawn of the times, but _seeing_ it was different. He didn't know how he had imagined them to be, but surely not this… normal, this similar to the ones living in the twenty-first century.

There were guards at the gates but they didn’t spare a glance at the demigod, and he entered in the city without any problem. Inside, he found _chaos._ People were selling things at every corner and stalls of food and fabrics were everywhere, their owners yelling at passer-byes the qualities of their products and the low prices. Children were running and playing between the legs of the people, who seemed not to even notice, and merchants paced through the streets with their carts, stopping to chat or sell along the way. There were also a few people on horses, which seemed undisturbed by the confusion, and as soon as Percy entered the city the animals turned their heads towards him and he placed a finger in front of his mouth, asking them to be quiet.

 _I’m in incognito_ he thought directed to the horses, and they turned their heads back towards their owners with what Percy could swear was a smile.  
He then tried to stop a few people to ask them for directions, but they all ignored him and walked faster as soon as he got close, and after a while he understood it was because they all thought he was going to ask them for money: not surprising, after all, considering he had walked through the desert and the mud and he hadn’t showered in days.  
So he took the sachet with the drachmas out of his bag, took a few out and walked towards a stall with hundreds of colorful fabrics on a tiny desk.

“Good morning, “ he saluted the owner, “I need to buy some clothes for myself. I’m not from here, but I’d like something typical of the city. Can you help me?”

The owner looked at him and arched his eyebrows.

“How much money do you have, boy? These are good quality. The best in the city.”

Percy slowly raised his hand and put the gold drachmas on the man’s desk. He looked at them, then back at Percy, and before he could take them Percy covered the coins with his hand again.

“Can you help me or not?” he repeated.

“Yes, yes of course my lord I’m very sorry. Deeply sorry my lord.” he said quickly, with a scared expression on his face and Percy realized only after a while that the man was afraid of _him_. 

“It’s alright. Just give me the best clothes I can buy with that money. I don’t have much time.”

While the man carefully looked between the fabrics, Percy regretted having been so harsh with him: he was just trying to look out for himself after all. But if the man’s behaviour was of any indication, Percy had made the right choice by asking for expensive clothes: he could get away with much more if people thought he was some kind of noble.

“Here, my lord. Usually here the men of your station wear a white chiton, like this” he showed him a white piece of cloth and Percy touched it, finding it extremely soft. “Then they take another piece of cloth, of a different colour, pass it over the right shoulder and then they secure it on the waist with a thin string.” He paused, looked at Percy and seeing him silent he added quickly, “that is if you want some clothes for everyday occasions of course. If you were looking for something more cerimonial-”

“No this is perfect, thank you.” He smiled at the man, who relaxed “I was just looking at the fabric you gave me. Is there a reason you chose the green one?”

“Well,” started the man, looking abashed, “I just thought it matched your eyes.”

Oh. Percy laughed and handed the drachmas to the man.

“I’ll buy them both, then.” he said, “is there a place where I can change?” he pointed at his dusty and torn clothes and added: “the desert hasn’t been very kind with me.”

The man smiled, took the drachmas and then guided him behind his stall, where with a few wooden boards he had built what was probably the ancestor of the modern dressing rooms. Percy took off his old clothes, stuffed them inside the bag and quickly put on the ones he had just bought. There wasn’t a mirror, but he was sure he looked even more ridiculous than he had before, even if the man had obviously told him he looked fantastic as soon as he had stepped out. 

As he started walking in the crowded streets again, he noted that the people were extremely more careful in never accidentally crush in him and he didn’t know what to think of that. He had tried asking for directions again, and this time everyone had been extremely helpful and Percy couldn’t avoid feeling enraged by the sudden change in behaviour.  
But the city was beautiful and Percy didn’t dwell too much on his thoughts, giving all of his attention to avoid crashing in the stalls or accidentally enter in someone’s home, enjoying the hot rays of the sun on his skin. He thought back to the storm that had encountered earlier, and the more he thought about it the weirder it seemed. The clouds had come out of nowhere and the boy, _Ganymede_ , had behaved very strangely, as if he knew something Percy didn’t.

He was still thinking about this when suddenly he heard a screeching noise, and a man yelling “Move!”. He turned, instinctively reaching for his sword, and his blood froze in his veins: a carriage was speeding down the road, and hearing the runaway horses neigh loudly all the people had moved quickly to the sides of the road.

All apart from a little boy, who was still playing in the middle of the street. 

The coachmen was pulling the reins as hard as he could, but Percy knew that he wouldn’t have managed to stop the horses in time, so he did the only thing he could do and the only thing Chiron had told him not to do.

“STOP!” he screamed, launching himself in the middle of the road and placing himself in front of the boy, who now looked afraid. The horses locked their eyes with his and halted immediately before his raised hand, which was softly glowing. The carriage stopped harshly and the coachmen fell from his seat, cursing in some dialect Percy had no time to decipher.

“Are you alright?” He asked to the boy, who nodded while silent tears ran across his cheeks.

Then, many things happened all at once. “Kosmas!” cried out a woman, running towards the child, “Oh Kosmas, thank you, my lord, thank you, thank you” she chanted to Percy, who had barely time to react before all the people surrounded him and started asking question on how he had done that. He didn’t have any idea what to answer though: how could he give a believable explanation without revealing his lineage? Fortunately, he was spared from answering when a man exited from the carriage.

“Move aside!” he yelled, “move aside for orders of the king!”

People scrambled away quickly from him, and Percy tried to regain his composure: the new clothes he had just bought were already dusty and probably his hair was a mess, but he needed the man to believe he really had had nothing to do with the horses stopping. 

“My lord-” he started, but the man interrupted him with a wave of the hand.

Then, from the carriage exited a rich-dressed man, with gems and gold embroidered in his clothes: he had a crown on his head, but Percy hadn't need to see it to know that the man was the king. Chiron had described him quite in detail when he had insisted to try to avoid him.

"Your majesty" he said while slightly bowing, "I apologize for the sudden stop of your carria-"

But the king didn’t let him finish and raised his hands to the sky, laughing. 

“The city has been blessed!” he thundered, “send word to everyone: my reign, the reign of King Thoas, will always be remembered as the one visited by the gods!”

“What?” Percy said, unable to stop himself. He glanced around, trying to see if a god had appeared somewhere, but there were just surprised-looking peasants.

“In the name of the people, I thank you for avoiding the death of a little child. You will be welcome to spend as much time as you wish in my palace, where you’ll be treated with the utmost regards, the ones fit for a higher king than myself.”

“What?” Percy said again, in a state of total confusion. What was the man talking about?

“Welcome to Corinth, Lord Poseidon”, said the king. 

Then he kneeled to the ground, and all the people kneeled with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I pushing the son of poseidon theme too much? Yes!  
> Am I going to stop? Not anytime soon!  
> Enjoy these chapters where everything goes fine... spoiler alert: it won't last long.  
> 


	6. Chapter Five

Percy really, _really_ , had no idea why it was so impossible for him to go somewhere without getting in some kind of trouble. He had tried to tell the king thousands of times that he was mistaken, but the man just… ignored him, which was unexpected really. If the king believed him to be Poseidon, shouldn’t he at least listen to him? But Thoas had just kept talking about how good he was as a ruler and about the new temple he’d build, and seriously Percy was regretting not actually being his father, so that he could silence him forever.

But thoughts and wishes don’t turn people into gods, and Percy quickly found himself exiting the carriage and stepping foot into the hall of the king’s palace, which was kind of… disappointing: it wasn’t very big and it looked just like the houses in the city, while he had expected some great structure with columns, statues and marbles, like in the movies.  
But what the house lacked in beauty, it had in life: dozens of men were busy carrying things from one side to the other, while stable boys tried to calm down the upset horses and servants had run inside to inform the king's family of his arrival.

"Your Highness?" Said a boy, not older than twelve. Percy instinctually looked angrily at him, his eyes now resembling more a storm than the calm Mediterranean he had rested in. The boy flinched, bowed and run away, and while Percy knew he should have felt guilty, he was just really, really annoyed. Why was no one listening to him?

While the king's wife and his daughter arrived to greet them, Percy had already formulated a plan: maybe if he went along with the king's misconception he could retrieve the stone more easily. If everyone believed him to be the mighty god of the seas, who was going to prohibit him from entering a fountain? But of course this plan was also extremely risky: gods don’t really like when you pretend to be them, and making an enemy out of his own father wasn’t a great idea. Annabeth would have had a better plan, of this Percy was sure.

Still, she wasn’t there and he had no other idea on how to behave. He smiled at the queen, he smiled at the princess, he smiled at everyone who looked at him, and finally the king showed him what had to be his quarters for the night. “But before we’re going to have a big celebration!” he had said, and Percy had been dreading it for hours. Tailors had come and gone from his room, preparing adequate robes for the feast and servants had delivered gifts from basically everyone that had heard of his arrival: there were swords, some kind of smelly soaps, ropes and a great quantity of food, as if he they were afraid the king woul-

_Oh shit. Oh no._

Percy stopped mid-movement, and the sword he was examining clattered to the ground. Gods don’t eat mortal food. Gods don’t eat mortal food, which means that the king was _not_ going to give him anything to eat: he would probably just burn something in his name and expect something in return, which obviously Percy couldn’t give. If he wanted to keep them believing he was Poseidon, then he couldn’t be seen eating, _never_. So he quickly put on a table all the dishes that had been brought to him, probably so he could burn them, and realized that while it seemed much they would only last him a couple of days if he kept using his powers and maybe a week if he didn’t.

Also, the king would probably ask him to tell stories of Olympus or Atlantis to entertain the nobles, and while he could refuse, it wouldn’t look very good. And maybe they would stop believing him. Wasn’t pretending to be gods a crime? The king would execute him and the 21th century would remain covered in darkness forever. No, no it couldn’t happen. He couldn’t fail this mission.

So when a servant brought him a deep green chiton and a golden cape, he let her dress him as if he was used to it, keeping his body still and his expression solemn. But when the servant girl’s hands lingered a moment too long on his skin, he turned towards her, surprised and the girl stopped, looking at the ground but keeping her hands where they were. 

“What’s your name?” he asked, distancing himself from her, slowly.

“Cynea, my lord.”

“Cynea. A nice name. Look at me,” he said, and the girl raised his eyes to meet with Percy’s ones, green like grass in the morning and like the first leaves of spring. He smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring and spoke again, never stopping looking at the young girl’s terrified face.  
“Did someone ask this of you?”

The girl didn’t move, nor answer. Percy waited, patiently, for her to find the right words.

“The king is trying to please you, my lord.” she finally said, her eyes back to the ground and her voice quivering.

Percy bit his lip, and he felt a pang of sadness in his chest for this barely teenaged girl, but then sadness was quickly replaced by anger. How dare him ask this of a child? He felt like he could storm to the king and punch him in the face, but he didn’t want to scare her any further with some anger outburst. So he took a few calming breaths, and waited for the girl to look at him again before talking.

“Please leave. I will not harm you. If the king asks, tell him I don’t sleep with servants. This should stop any further tentatives.”

“Yes my lord, thank you my lord” she said, hurrying towards the door. “I will not forget your kindness, Lord Poseidon.”

Percy sighed, rubbing his wrists, and securing Anaklusmos to his waist. He had a dinner to attend to and a facade to keep going, and there wasn’t time to think about how much he had wished for that girl to be Annabeth.

~~~

“So you’re saying _there is_ a way to end the darkness?”

Reyna sat straighter on her chair, her hands playing with a golden clip and stared at Jason, who was nervously pacing in front of her desk.

“I am not sure. It’s just an old tale. Demigods have been existing for a very long time, and many stories have passed from mouth to mouth, going from translation to translation, moving with Olympus:“ she motioned for Jason to sit in front of her and continued, “so even if maybe at the start there was some fondation of truth in them, now we would be lucky if at least the major elements have remained the same.”

Jason took his face in his hands, elbows painfully pushing on the hard, wooden desk and wishing to be anywhere but close to another quest.

“Have you managed to communicate with Camp Half-Blood? Maybe they know something more, since they’re closer to Olympus.”

Reyna sighed, glancing at the scattered papers on her desk and then looking back at Jason.

“No,” she finally answered, “I’ve had to close the Camp’s borders because no one could assure me monsters wouldn’t enter now that Jupiter’s power doesn’t keep them out. So no one is leaving and no one is entering.”

Jason opened his mouth to talk, but Reyna preceded him:

“We’re completely cut off from the Greeks, apart Piper of course who was here at Camp when it started. Frank had sent out messengers, but after a week passed and they still hadn’t come back, we decided to close the borders anyway. It was too risky.”

Jason could see that she was trying to keep her voice strong, but he had spent too much time with her not to notice when it was forced. He took her hand in his, and when she looked at him surprised, he tried to smile reassuringly.

“We have survived centuries without them. We will manage. And they have Percy and Annabeth. They’ll be fine.” he laughed, but then his face turned serious again, “now, let’s get back into business. What’s this story?” 

Reyna sighed again, letting go of the clip in her hand and instead starting scribbling something on a blank paper.

“It’s… well I would say complicated, but it’s actually quite easy. Too easy, in many’s opinion, and that’s why it got embellished every time someone told it. No one wants to tell a boring story, after all.”

She smiled, and paused to give Jason the time to think about it. He could see she had doodled something. A wall, maybe?

“But all the story agree on one point: there is an object that is able to turn something into his original form. Let’s say, if you for example were to use it, then all of your scars would fade, because they weren’t there at the origin. I’ve talked with the city’s elders, and they almost all think it could give gods their powers back, even if none of them actually believed in the object’s existence.”

Jason chuckled slightly, “Well,” he started, “in the last years have happened a lot of things they said would never happen, so I wouldn’t trust them too much in this.”

 _“The problem,”_ Reyna continued as if he had never spoken, “is that the versions of the story differ greatly about the nature of this object and its origins. Some talk of a golden crown. Many think it’s the oldest branch of the oldest tree on Mount Olympus. But the version I like more is the oldest one and also the most simple: they say it’s the first rock that was placed down in the building of Rome, which with his power maintained the city glorious for millennials.”

“Gosh”

Reyna smiled sadly.

“So you want me to go to Rome? How on earth would I even be able to tell which stone is the oldest one?”

And, Jason refrained from adding, how would he survive the travel across the Atlantic, without a flying ship and in complete darkness, at the mercy of the monsters? They had barely made it the first time, and Percy had guided the ship and calmed the sea for most of the travel.

“You’re not going to go to Rome. It would be useless. The journey is too risky and we can’t afford to lose you now. I’m only telling you this because I need help in convincing the elders to tell me what needs to be done once we have the stone.”

Jason looked at her, incredulity all across his face. “So you have it? Couldn’t you have started the story with this?”

Reyna raised her eyes to the sky, and sighed again, ignoring Jason’s glare.

“I don’t have it. But we will soon. You’re not the only skilled demigod we have at Camp, you know right?” she smirked, and Jason almost looked offended, but he was smiling. “I had the perfect demigods for this quest, and they left four days ago. Which means they should be back soon now. Any idea of who they could be?”

Jason started thinking. He wasn’t suited because for him travelling was too risky. And because he wouldn’t have had any idea of where to look for this stone, nor how to recognize the oldest one in a group. So she had probably sent someone who could recognize rocks and someone for whom wasn’t a problem travelling in the da-

“Nico,” he said, “and Hazel”, he added, coming to the realization. Of course. Who else?

Reyna smiled. _You’re a genius_ , Jason thought, but he kept his mouth shut.

“You got there at last,” she said harshly, but she was smiling, and not unkindly.

Jason relaxed on his chair, worried about them but also happy of the fact that he wasn’t going to embark in an impossible quest on the other side of the world. Was it selfish? Probably yes, but Jason could recognize when he wasn’t the best person for the job, and this time he really didn’t mind leaving the bright spot to someone else.

He was about to propose Reyna to go out for a celebratory hot chocolate, when someone knocked harshly on the door, and entered without waiting for an answer.

“Reyna-” he started, breathless, “Reyna, there is a new ghost at Camp. There is-”

He breathed heavily, still not having recovered from the run he had made.

“What?” pressed Jason, not liking were this was going.

The boy looked at him, and when he spoke he felt as if the ground had been taken from under his feet.

“It’s… she’s....it’s Hazel.”

And with that, the world shook. 

~~~

At the beginning, there was nothing.  
At the end, there was silence.  
And in the middle, there was pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're finally seeing what's happening in New Rome! Sooner or later we'll have an idea of what most of the character are doing... but for now, sorry about this shorter chapter. It's a necessary build-up for next one, where A LOT of things are about to happen.


	7. Chapter Six

While the king’s house aspect had greatly disappointed Percy, he could not say the same for the dining hall: there were dozens of tables, covered with the whitest of cloths, engraved with motifs of flowers and leaves, and the walls were of a very deep red. The sun had not set completely yet, but lit candles were everywhere, projecting the shadows of the hundreds of dishes on the immaculate, mosaic floor and making the golden jewels of the ladies shine even brighter.

Percy let himself be announced, and this time he managed to smile graciously when everyone kneeled before him, before quickly urging them to please keep enjoying the feast. As he had thought, the king asked him a billion question, and for the most part Percy could answer sincerely, editing the tales of his own, numerous quests and trying to avoid mentioning names of people and places.

He sat at the right of the king, with the princess next to him, at the table of honour at the end of the room, and from there he could see the whole hall. Nobles were chatting and laughing on the sofas, eating with their fingers from the various dishes that were on the small tables all across the room, and their clothes were similar to Percy’s ones, but more modest: apparently Thoas hadn’t spared no expense on them.

While half-listening to the king, Percy noted that all the noblewomen were engaged in some sort of conversation, apart from the king’s own daughter. Maybe she felt uncomfortable at the idea of directly addressing someone whom she believed to be a god? Or maybe it was custom for men to initiate the conversation: he didn’t know and Chiron had never mentioned it, but he had avoided telling him many things, so it meant little.

“Hello”, he started, unexpectedly feeling awkward, “may I have the pleasure of knowing the name of this elegant princess sitting next to me?”

He smiled, congratulating himself on his choice of compliment that didn’t involve any comment on her evident beauty. She was young, he had a girlfriend and didn’t want a repetition of what had happened with the servant.

“My name is Elissa, my lord. I’m honored to meet you.” she answered, and then she smiled and looked back at her plate, and it looked like a move practiced hundreds of times. But Percy didn’t give up, intentioned in making the evening a bit less boring for the girl.

“Elissa,” he said, tasting the name, “ _the wanderer_. Do you like to travel or does your name not respect your character?”

“I have never left the city, my lord,” she answered, sadness slipping through her words, “but when I was younger I was allowed to go in the gardens by myself, and I explored every inch of them.” and she must finally had become bolder, because she added, “now I’m not allowed to go without guards, or without my intended. But I would be allowed to come with you, if you were to ask my father.”

Percy bit his lip, taking his time in making sure he had understood her correctly. Elissa had not changed her expression, and was now looking again at her plate, playing with the fork. He waited for the king to be deeply engaged in another conversation, and then he turned back to the girl.

“Why do you want to go to the gardens now?” he murmured.

The feast had barely just started, and it was probably going to go on all night. Percy was sure the king wasn’t going to like him leaving with his young daughter, now that the darkness had sent away the sun.

“Please”, she muttered, and Percy could not find it in his heart to refuse. So when the king stopped laughing at the story some noble had been telling him, Percy made his request.  
Thoas stopped mid-smile, and looked at him. Percy saw anger flicker in his eyes, before he realized who he was speaking to, and held his tongue. It was clear, from the rigid set of his shoulders, that he was more used to giving orders than to obey to them, and Percy wondered how it must have been for the princess to grow up with him and without any freedom. Was gold really worth all of the restrictions? He doubted it, but he had always given little thought to material possessions.

He smiled at the king, subtly showing his teeth in an attempt to be intimidating and conveying the silent threat with his eyes, a mute order to approve graciously to the request joined with the promise of a retribution.  
The king paled, but quickly regained his smile, and stood up, arms raised to the sky:

“The Lord of the Sea wishes to see our beautiful gardens!” he exclaimed, “and to prove my faith and his welcome here, I’ve decided that my daughter Elissa will accompany him. She’s an expert, as you all know!” he laughed, and some nobles with him, “but of course,” he continued, “since she’s going to be married tomorrow, I want to know if her intended agrees.”

He smiled at him, making clear that it wasn’t in fact, a choice he could make but only a formality, and then added, “so, what’s the first command you’re going to give her? Oh I’m sure you didn’t think it would be this”, he smirked, and many men chuckled slightly.

Elissa had grabbed the handle of her knife, and she was holding it so tightly that her knuckles had become white. Percy could understand: the fact that they were speaking of her as if she was an object, as if she wasn’t there had bothered him too, but before he could intervene, a man on his forties spoke loudly:

“My desire is for my future wife to obey to her father’s last command.” he stated, his jaw set and his body tense in anger, glaring at the ground since his disdain couldn’t be directed nor at the king nor at whom he believed to be Poseidon.

“A very kind offer,” Percy interjected, “I accept it gladly, and I reassure you that we will be coming back before the end of the feast.”

He smiled again and stood up, followed by the princess. Slowly they crossed the hall, with every noble’s eyes on them, and arrived at the doors which led to the garden. They walked for a while in silence, in awe of the full moon and of the thousands of stars that shined like glass between the sand.

“It’s a beautiful night,” said Percy, breaking the silence.

“It is indeed”, answered the girl, guiding him in a more secluded part of the garden. They walked quite quickly in silence for a few minutes, and Percy couldn’t avoid getting lost in his thoughts. What was Annabeth doing at that moment? Was his mother alright? Paul, Estelle, all of his friends at Camp? He hoped they were all alright, but a part of him wondered how likely that was, with so many monsters around. He looked at the moon and thought of Thalia: had she managed to find a safe place or was she still wandering in the forest with her huntresses even in the eternal night?

He was still looking up at the sky when the girl stopped, and Percy tripped on her feet, instinctually putting his hands forward once he felt his body falling and accidentally grabbing the girl’s arm and taking her down with him in the soft, humid grass.

“AHH!” she screamed, and Percy felt a pang of pain in his arm, and something thick on his skin. _It’s blood_ , his brain supplied, but before Percy could comprehend what had happened, Elissa had raised to her feet and she was now pointing a dinner knife at him, her hand shaking. 

Percy kept looking at her, confused. “I am sorry I fell on you, my lady. I was looking at the sky and I didn’t notice you had stopped. Do you usually stab everyone who trips on your feet?”, he chuckled, the situation reminding him of when he had first met Rachel and she had accused him of trying to kill everyone who sneezed.

“Oh gods,” she exclaimed, letting the knife fall into the grass, “oh gods,” she repeated, crouching down next to Percy and taking his arm, “I am so sorry, please forgive me, please have mercy of me, Lord Pos-” 

Her eyes darted on his wound, and Percy saw the exact moment in which she realized he was bleeding. Great, his facade had lasted for a total of three hours. Just great. Elissa stilled for a moment and looked questioningly at him, but then she recovered and started to press on his skin to stop the blood.

“Elissa. Elissa, hey stop, stop, it’s alright. A bit of water will stop the bleeding just fine.”

“You can stop pretending,” she said between gritted teeth, “I saw your blood. You’re no god. My father may be a fool but I hate being taken for an idiot.”

Percy sighed, and quickly weighed his options: if he said nothing, the princess would denounce him to her father and he would end up in jail, or dead. But on the other hand, he couldn’t deny he had shed blood, since he wasn’t good in handling the Mist. No, the only thing he could do was something Chiron had forbidden him to: that is to tell her the truth.

“I wasn’t totally lying,” he admitted while slowly raising to his feet and motioning to Elissa to do the same, “Poseidon is my father. Look-” he raised his right hand, and water started dancing above his palm, shining in the starlight. He then guided it on his still bleeding wound, and it quickly closed and every trace of the knife’s passage faded in the moonlight.

“See? I _do have_ powers over the sea. Your father saw it and thought I was a god and, while I admit I didn’t object too greatly, I did tell him he was mistaken. Various times. He just pretended not to hear me.”

Elissa chuckled, awe and incredulity plastered all across her face, painting all of her features with something young and innocent.

“You’re a demigod. A hero, like the ones of the myths.” 

“Yes. I am here on a quest.”

“A quest? Oh. I…” she hesitated, for the first time since he had spoken to her, her previous boldness seemingly lost. But Percy had patience, and he smiled, giving her all the time she needed to find the words to articulate her thoughts.

She finally seemed to arrive to a decision, and she locked her dark brown eyes with Percy’s green ones.

“I’ve read many myths and I’ve been told even more. The heroes always need help in their quests. Hercules, Theseus, Jason all received some kind of help and succeeded thanks to it,” she took a breath and continued, “so I have a proposal for you. I won’t tell my father you’re not Poseidon and I’ll help you with your quest. And in exchange, you will help me"

"Help you with what?" Percy pressed, curious.

"I want you to take me away from the city before my wedding, tomorrow evening.” she answered, her eyes firm on Percy's own, while he weighed the pros and cons of the offer and how it could fit with his plans.

“Do we have a deal?” she asked, after a few seconds of silence.

“We do”, Percy answered, as if he had ever had another choice, as if Dionysus hadn’t warned him he would become like all the other heroes, as if the Fates hadn't decided ages ago that this was destined to happen.

~~~

Jason had never felt as powerless as he did while the boy, Kevin a son of Venus of the Third Cohort, led him and Reyna towards the place where Hazel’s ghost had appeared. He could feel his heart sitting heavily in his chest, and he couldn’t suppress the hope that the boy was mistaken, that it was of someone who only looked like Hazel. He glanced at Reyna, who was walking so fast he was barely managing to keep up, and he could see sorrow and desolation in all of her features. Jason wondered how could she have been able to process it already, to accept it as a fact without seeing, because a part of him was still stuck listening to Reyna’s story in her office and refused to believe to the boy.

“Hazel?” Kevin called, stopping in a small clearing close to the river.

Jason looked around himself, in anticipation: his heart was beating so fast he could hear it and a sudden anxiety had permeated all of his body. _Please let him be mistaken,_ he prayed, to gods that were no more.

But nothing happened.

Until it did.

Reyna winced and Jason glanced at her, before looking in the same direction, feeling the blood freeze in his veins and his heart stop for a fraction of second.

Sitting on a rock there was Hazel, or rather an image of who she had been, the rich colours of her skin and hair now greyish and dull, her clothes damped and torn and her eyes empty of their usual light.

“Kevin please leave us alone”, Reyna ordered, and Jason wondered how could she seem so calm, when he felt sick and unable to even think, sure that even if he tried, no words would come out of his mouth.

“Hazel?,” Reyna continued, slowly walking towards her, “Do you know who we are?”

Hazel raised her head, and a flicker of recognition passed in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. After a few tentatives, she started to look panicked and her eyes darted from Reyna to Jason, from one side to the other.

“Hazel please calm down.” Reyna said, “Jason come on, give me a hand here.”

But Jason didn’t think he could. All of his body felt heavy, and he was hyper aware of his feet touching the ground, of the wind passing through the trees, of the little bird calling for his mother on the oak’s branch, of the clouds slowly mov-

“Jason”

Of the ghost of his friend staring at him and helplessly mouthing words he could not understand.

“Hazel,” he started, voice surprisingly firm, “please calm down. Take a deep breath.”

Hazel did, and Reyna looked proudly at him, maybe surprised by his sudden change in attitude, maybe pleased by his control on grief.

But Jason couldn’t let himself be distracted by her, for a tentative of consolation would make him crumble in a mess of tears, and so he kept his eyes firm on Hazel.

“Can you tell us what happened?”, he continued. There would be time for sorrow later.

Hazel nodded and this time, when she tried to speak, words obeyed to her will.

“Me and Nico… we were in Rome, trying to retrieve the First Stone. Has Reyna told you about it?” she asked looking at Jason, and when he nodded she continued, “well, we succeeded. It was difficult and we had to spend a couple of days underground, but at the end we found the right place, and the oldest of the stones there.”

“Rome was very different from last year, you know? The people were scared and many preferred to stay in the safety of their homes rather than to go out in the darkness. Monsters were everywhere, but Nico and me fought them bravely. At the end, they weren’t the problem.”

She bit her lip and looked pained at Reyna, her eyes begging not to make her go any further. But they both needed to know what had happened. Hazel said they had retrieved the stone, but she didn’t have it. Maybe Nico? But then why hadn’t he come to Camp?  
“What was the problem?” pressed Reyna, trying to take Hazel’s hand in hers and shuddering when her flesh passed through the grey veil that was everything left of the young daughter of Pluto.

“It’s… Nico had taught me how to shadow travel last year, and since I had become good at it we decided to do it together, so that with only one jump we could travel from Rome to New York, and from New York to here. We wanted to be back as soon as possible, because well… you know, people were dying. A lot of them.”

She shuddered and tensed her shoulders, almost folding into herself, and Jason felt sick again. He couldn’t even start to comprehend how awful it must be to literally feel people die, to feel their desperation and fear and not being able to do anything about it.

“So, about… two days ago? we… we tried to shadow travel to New York. But when we were somewhere across the Atlantic, Nico… he got distracted.” her voice had become fainter and fainter, and there were tears in her empty eyes, but she went on, undaunted.

“And I did too, and we… we left the grip on the shadows, let’s say. We fell into the sea. Nico was carrying the bag with the stone and he just… he just went down and I, I tried to swim but then it was- it was dark and I was tired and I just- I let the waves have me and I went down too.”

 _Gods_.

“I regained consciousness in the Underworld, Nico next to me but the stone somewhere on the sea bank. He told me to come back here to tell you what had happened because he… he had to look for him. He had to.” she concluded, looking straight at Jason.

But Jason’s mind had abandoned him once again, his thoughts only a repetition of _Nico’s dead, Nico’s dead, Nico’s dead, Nico’s dead._

“He had to look for whom?” asked Reyna, worryingly looking at Jason, who was swaying on his feet.

“Did I not tell you why Nico and me got distracted?” said Hazel, tears shining on her cheeks and voice trembling.

Reyna shook her head and Jason tried to do the same, and Hazel sighed and a sob escaped from her lips.

“Percy’s dead.” she stated, ”We felt his soul slip away.”, she whispered, every syllable carrying the weight of a thousand memories, every word the feeling of an eternity, every sentence the promise of a revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... does sorry cover it?  
> No? Oh well... then know this: I cried writing down the various versions of Hazel's speech I tried.


	8. Chapter Seven

“We should get back to the feast”, Percy said, while distractingly plucking daisies from the ground around where he was sitting. “Your father will get suspicious if we stay out any longer.”

“Wait. Let’s revise the plan once again.”

Percy snorted, falling on his back and laying down, letting his hair get damp with the humidity of the grass.

“I know the plan,” he stated grumpily, while Elissa rolled her eyes for the billionth time, “your wedding preparations start two hours before sunset, which means that I’ll have to come to your door at maximum three hours after midday. I’ll tell your guards I want to walk in the gardens again, and instead I’ll kidnap you.”

“You won’t _kidna-_ ”

“Well that’s what it will look like.” Percy cutted short, “Then, I’ll steal an horse from the stables and you’ll guide me to the fountain where the stone is. Once I’ve retrieved it we’ll set foot for Athens at once, hoping that the guards still won’t have noticed we’re missing. The journey would take a couple of days by foot, so if we manage to keep the horse we’ll be there in a bit more than a day. And you’ll be able to realize your dream of becoming one of Athena’s priestess.”

Elissa stared at the moon, her eyes shining with hope and anticipation. She looked so young, and Percy prayed for everything to go right, just this once, just this life.

They started to walk back to the dining hall, but before they could enter Elissa stopped, and turned her head towards Percy.

“Wait,” she started, “you never told me what your name really is.”

“It’s Perseus,” he said, smiling under the bright torches, “but you can call me Percy”.

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully, and Percy chatted with so many nobles that at the end they all looked the same, and his mouth hurt from how much he had been forcing it into a smile. As he had imposed himself, he didn’t eat nor drink, repressing the hunger by thinking of all the delicious dishes that were waiting for him in his room.

Finally, ages after the night had come to its half and only hours before the birth of the sun, the king and the drunken nobles retired to their chambers, and Percy sighed in relief, his tired limbs asking for mercy.

He entered into his chambers half asleep and with his feet hurting from the uncomfortable sandals, ready to pass out into his bed, when a sudden feeling made him stop in his tracks.  
_There’s someone else in here_ , screamed his instincts, _run_ , they pressed, _run_ .

But if there was one thing Percy was not known for, it was running away from danger. Annabeth had accused him of being self-destructive once, and while Percy hadn’t agreed at first, now he couldn’t deny that maybe there had been a bit of truth in the statement.

“Who’s in here?” he asked warily, hand ready on the tilt of his sword. He slowly closed the door behind him, and placed the candle he was holding on the closer table, enlightening the room with a faint, yellowish light. Percy swallowed, flinching at the trembling of the shadows on the walls.

“Who’s in here? Show yourself.” he repeated, starting to feel paranoid. Maybe there was no danger and he was just tired, and hungry. Maybe he was just anxious about the next day’s plans.

But before he could take any decision, the strong smell of the sea filled the room.

“Oh.” Percy said, relaxing and taking his hand away from his sword, “Hello Fath-”

Then suddenly, a strong hand grabbed his neck and pushed him back, pressing his body to the wall and holding so tightly that Percy couldn’t breathe anymore. He froze for a second, surprised, but then he started kicking and trying to take the hand away from his neck in some uncoordinated panic.

“Wha-”

“Stop moving”, the man ordered, voice hard and without mercy, voice like the sound of ships breaking in the middle of a storm.

But Percy’s brain had stopped working, memories of drowning flooding his mind and increasing his panic. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, and he felt his consciousness slowly slipping away.

“Please” he worded, no sound escaping from his lips.

He had shut his eyes tightly, but if he were to be killed by his father he wanted him to be forced to look at his son in the eyes while the life left his body. So he opened them, and looked at Poseidon.

Green met green.  
Pain met anger.

Then something passed in the god’s eyes and he gasped, leaving his hand from Percy’s neck, surprise written in every line on his face, storms coming to an halt in his eyes.

But it was already too late and Percy’s body hit the ground, unmoving, his own father’s angry eyes the last thing he would ever see, the pain of slowly choking the last thing he would ever feel in this life.

~~~

_“Percy? Percy?”_

_Nico passed quickly through the thousands of souls living in Elysium, scanning the faces and the clothes of everyone. Why wasn’t he there? He had felt his soul leave the world of the living, but now he couldn’t feel his presence in the Underworld._

_“Have you seen a boy named Percy Jackson?”, he asked the soul of a young woman, “black hair, green eyes and some cheesy t-shirt?”_

_But the woman shook her head and walked away, leaving Nico alone in the middle of a green field. He looked around himself for a while, but then his eyes stopped on a lonely figure at the edge of his vision._

_“Percy?”_

_The boy turned, and hollow eyes stared at Nico’s soul. Dread filled his heart, for he suddenly had the impression of knowing him: maybe from one of his earlier visits, since the man couldn’t possibly be Percy. He had been dead only for a couple of days._

_And those were the old eyes of someone who had been dead for centuries._

 

~~~

“What do we do now?” 

Jason took his head in his hands, shoulders trembling from so many emotions that he hadn’t even be able to recognize them. Hazel was dead, Nico was dead and Percy… Percy had been dead for days, and he hadn’t known. He wondered if someone else did, if it happened while he was alone or if Annabeth had been there. Was she dead too?

“I don’t know”, said Piper, her hand slowly caressing his back in a tentative of comfort, “I… I don’t know. Reyna’s plan shattered and we can’t communicate with the outside. We’re- we’re stuck in here.” Her voice broke down and she started sobbing, leaning her head on Jason’s back.

“I think we should risk it and call Annabeth”, Frank said, “we could use that greek way of sending messages with the rainbows… what was its name?”

“Iris message,” answered Reyna, “we would need to take away the Camp’s protections for all the time of the call, and monsters could enter. But that isn’t the biggest issue. No,” she added, “there are no more gods Frank, and Iris cannot help us.”

“But there is a daughter of Iride here at Camp isn’t there?” pressed Frank, “you could lend her your strength so that she can have enough power to send a short message.”

“Yes it could work,” sniffled Piper “and we need to know if… we need to know about the others.”

“Very well,” said Reyna, “Frank please go call her. Jason help me take down the Camp’s barriers and Piper,” she paused, thinking “Piper order the first centurion you see to place his cohort at the Camp’s entrances to protect them by any attack.”

Everyone moved to follow her orders, no one questioning Reyna’s authority, and when the barriers where down and Piper and Frank had returned with Iride’s daughter, Lilian, Reyna looked at all of her friends and asked:

“Are you ready? We’re not going to have a second chance at this.”

Everyone nodded, and she placed her hands on Lilian shoulders, while the girl focused on creating a rainbow, chanting some unknown spell.

“I wish to speak to Annabeth Chase, in Camp Half-Blood”, she concluded, her words barely audible under the sound of battle at the city’s gates.

“Come on, come on”, muttered Frank, sitting on the edge of his seat, while the rainbow slowly rotated on itself.

Then, the image of a blonde girl appeared in the air before them, and she raised her eyes to meet Jason’s ones, an happy but perplexed expression on her face.

“Jason!” she exclaimed, “Oh you’re all here!” she added, seeing the others, ”I’m so happy you’re alright, we couldn’t get an hold of you and we feared the worst. How are things going there? How did you manage to start an Iris message? I have been trying for weeks.” 

She sighed dramatically and smiling, and Piper’s heart sank in her chest. She didn’t know. She didn’t know about Percy. She glanced at the others, and apparently everyone had come to her own realization, because there was fear and sadness in their eyes. How were they gonna tell her?

“Annabeth,” started Jason, and Piper thanked the gods for his bravery, because she would have hesitated much more. “Annabeth I don’t really know how to tell you but… Hazel… Hazel and Nico are dead.”  
Frank stilled on his chair and Reyna bit her lower lip, eyes looking at Annabeth but ears listening to the battle outside.

“What?, Annabeth said, “No.No. That’s not… That’s not- not possible.” she looked distraught and Piper wondered how were they going to add to that the grief that would follow the news of her boyfriend’s death. She shuddered and looked at Jason, who swallowed and opened his mouth, searching for the right words.

He told her all the story, of the stone and the quest, of how he had believed it was for him and of how instead Nico and Hazel had gone. He told her about the meeting with Hazel’s ghost, and tears formed in Annabeth’s eyes while Jason’s voice became fainter and fainter.

“But why did they get distracted?” asked Annabeth, her brain apparently failing in finding a plausible answer. 

Jason paused and Frank spoke up, looking straight at her, “Percy’s dead.” he stated, with the certainty with which the sun sets and the stars shine, “Nico felt it, and Hazel too”, he added.

Annabeth paled and stared at Reyna, as if wanting a confirm that it wasn’t a joke. Reyna lowered her head, and Annabeth took her head in her hands, choking down a sob.

“Annab-” started Piper, but Annabeth raised her head suddenly and “Wait,” she said. “Wait.”  
Everyone looked at her and she continued:

“You said this happened between two and three days ago?” Jason nodded, “Alright.” she said, “Alright. And Nico, did he- did he feel him dying or did he feel his soul leave this world?”

Reyna looked weirdly at her, and thought back to Hazel’s words. “She said they felt his soul slip away”. A pause, a blink of an eye that for Piper lasted centuries and then-

“Oh thank the gods”, Annabeth answered, smiling despite the sorrow of Hazel’s and Nico’s deaths.

“Annabeth?” Frank asked, confused.

And Annabeth told them of Aion, of the snake, of Percy’s travel back in time.

“So he didn’t feel him dying. He just felt his body leave this world to go into the one of the past. But he’s alive. He’s alive.” she chanted, staring at Reyna, “He’s alive”.

 

~~~

_“Percy?”_

_The man stared at him, hollow eyes fixed on the depth of his soul, and Nico flinched, unable to stop himself under his scrutiny. A part of him wanted that man to be Percy. It would mean he had finally found him, it would mean that he hadn’t killed Hazel and himself for nothing.  
It would mean he hadn’t killed them for a mistake._

_“Percy.”, the main said, voice rough and unused, “It’s been a long a time since someone called me that.” He smiled, and Nico felt dread passing through him in waves, and the clench of a heart he didn’t have anymore._

_“My heart stopped beating,” he explained, “and I spent here thousands of years that I shall not remember when it will start again.”_

_“Start again? What do you mean?” Nico asked, confused. Was he aiming for rebirth?_

_Percy smiled and raised his hand in front of him, as if he wanted to take Nico’s in his, as if he had longed for that moment an eternity too long._

_“One can not die if he has never been alive in the first place”._

_And with that, he was gone, leaving Nico with a hundred questions and no one to ask them to, leaving him in an empty field and in the company of dead heroes, with imaginary muscles hurting for a pain they were unable to feel._

~~~

What’s the best sound in the world?  
Many say it’s the one of children’s laughing. Some prefer the sounds of when nature makes itself heard: the calming one of the waves crashing on the shore, the whisper of the wind between mountains, the roar of a thunder in the summer night.

But they’re all mistaken, for the best sound in the world is one we hear everyday.  
And it’s the beating of a living heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL the events in the different POVs are taking place at the same time. Which means that in order:
> 
> Hazel and Nico leave for Rome-> they find the Stone and try to come back-> while they're travelling Percy goes back in time-> they think he died and drown in the Atlantic-> Percy is in Ancient Greece and meets Elissa->Hazel talks with Jason and Reyna-> they talk with Annabeth and she realizes they hadn't felt Percy die but only him travelling back-> Annabeth says he's alive-> Percy is actually strangled by Poseidon and dies-> he meets Nico in Esylium-> and then Percy???
> 
> Hope everything is clearer!!


	9. Chapter Eight

Percy opened his eyes slowly, trying to adapt them to the faint, bluish light. He spent a few seconds lying down and trying to regain control on the rest of his body, before he remembered the events of the evening and bursted up ready to defend himself from… from whom? There was no one there and the last thing he remembered were… candles? And darkness so obscure and heavy that he felt like his soul had been covered in it. What had happened?

“You’re awake”, said a voice, on his right. No, on his left? Above him? It seemed to come from all around him and Percy looked around, confused. Then the rest of his memories crushed on him: the feast, the gardens, Elissa and then his father, his father who had tried to kill him. Had he succeeded? Was he dead? He felt panic rise in his throat and-

“Calm down”, the voice said again, twirling around him, caressing his cheeks, a promise and a threat in only one breath, “tell me everything and I shall let you leave my domain alive”.

Only then, Percy noticed that he was, in fact, underwater, and sitting down on the sea bank, curious fishes surrounding him and a man on his twenties sitting in front of him. He sat straighter and stared at the face of his father, no words coming out of his mouth. How long had it been since the last time he had seen him? Percy felt anger and confusion coloring all of his thoughts: how dared him?

Poseidon arched an eyebrow and looked at him, without a trace of the usual smile his father always offered, and it hurt more than Percy would have ever been able to admit. 

“You are young” Percy said, without thinking, disbelief tainting his words. It was true: this Poseidon had yet to survive hundreds of wars, had yet to live for other thousands of years. This was the god of the myths, the merciless one who destroyed mountains and sank cities, and Percy needed to be careful to remember that, since his father’s eyes had filled with anger as soon as his words had left his mouth.

“How dar-”

“Sorry, sorry” Percy interrupted, regretting even that when he felt the currents tighten around him, “It’s just… a long story. You probably won’t even believe me and you’ll… well you’ll kill me for real this time.”

A shadow passed in Poseidon’s eyes, darkening them, “I don’t usually harm my own children.”, he said, voice hovering in the water, “but I was not aware of having a mortal one. I haven’t in...centuries.” Percy looked at him surprised, and he added, “That’s the only reason you spent only a few thousand years in the Underworld and not an eternity.”

“What?” Percy asked, confused. He couldn’t remember anything, no matter how much he forced his mind to. Had he really spent centuries there?

“You will never remember,” answered his father, “and that’s a good thing. The Fates are not done governing your life. It took thousands of years, but finally two lives were drowned in your name and the power of that sacrifice travelled across the ages, until it reached me and I could bring you back”. A pause, a breath, a promise and then, “Try not to make me regret it.”, an order.

The water tightened around him again and Percy raised his arms, a shadow of a smile on his lips that had no reason else to exist if not for the memories those words had evoked, of a simpler time where wars still had to damage him. But as soon as the smile had come it went away, the weight of Poseidon’s words finally sinking in. Had someone died for him? He hoped it had only been a figure of speech, because he didn’t think he would have ever managed to forgive himself if the Fates had let two random people die just so he could live again.

But he would worry about it when he didn’t have a pissed off god in front of him. He couldn’t deal with more than a life or death problem at once.

“I’m gonna tell you my story then,” he finally managed to say, voice calm and body taking power from the Mediterranean around him, “but let’s start it with the fact that I was not pretending to be you. The king just believed so and I didn’t manage to make him change his mind. He just wanted it to be true too much.”

Poseidon still didn’t look convinced, but he stayed silent, observing him carefully and trying to understand whether he was lying or not. Percy took it as in invitation to continue, not letting himself be intimidated by the many fishes that were now around him.

“I come from the future.” he said, looking at his father in the eyes, “I come from a future of darkness where the gods are no more.”

His father looked perplexed, anger in his face, “What do you mean?” he asked, and Percy could feel his patience wearing thin. The fishes must have felt it too, because they had started getting nervous: but Percy wasn’t going to let his father scare away those innocent creatures, and he sent them thoughts of peace and reassurance, trying to calm them down, before starting talking again.

“There were wars. The Titans came back. Gea woke up and the Giants resurrected. I fought them. _We_ fought them. But apparently, it wasn’t enough.”

He sighed and found Poseidon staring at him intently, while he described the details of his quests, sparing nothing, talking even of his darkest secrets he had never told anyone, not even Annabeth: his fear of drowning, his desire to torture monsters, the fear of his own powers that had originated after he had come back from Tartarus.

There was something calm about the water around him, something that made it impossible for Percy to stop talking, even when his words became incomprehensible and tears started to confuse themselves with the sea water at the thought of his dead friends.  
A fish came closer to him, trying to offer some comfort, and Percy petted it distractingly, while Poseidon shifted awkwardly in his sit, probably not having expected such a story.

“And then… and then Chiron told me to travel back in time, and I did, I did without knowing anything of what I was going to find nor if I’d ever be able to come back to my mother, and my- my girlfriend and my friends…” he quickly wiped the tears running down his cheeks, ashamed, and looked at his father, waiting for some kind of answer.

He didn’t really know what to expect from him: compassion, understanding? an offer of help? or maybe he hadn’t believed him and was thinking of ways to kill him. His expression was unreadable, and Percy waited in silence for what seemed hours, the rays of the sun now hitting the surface of the sea from the other side and enlightening deeper than usual.

He didn’t really know what to expect, but surely not what happened.

“Stay here”, his father said at last, thoughtful, “come to live in Atlantis. There are oceans in your veins and earthquakes in your bones, storms in your eyes and love in your heart.” he paused and the currents stilled, releasing Percy from their strong hold.

“You are my son and you would be treated as such: no one would ever, ever dare to cause you any harm. Come to live in Atlantis,” he repeated, “and I shall free you from the burden of your future.”

Was this how temptation felt like? Was this how they said Adam and Eve had felt? Percy stared at his father, his green eyes never leaving his own, and saw how his life would have gone: training with Triton, state dinners, many wars but also oh, so much peace, so much serenity. Afternoons spent on sunny, desolate beaches enjoying the hot rays of the sun, evenings quickly blinked away by laughter and love, so much love, coming from every corner of his father’s domain and directed at their black-haired prince.

Percy swallowed, and lowered his eyes, looking at the sand below him, and he thought of the life he would leave behind: how were the Camps going to survive? Who was going to defeat the darkness if not him? And Annabeth, oh how could he leave her? 

“She would never meet you” Poseidon said and Percy winced, surprised. Was he reading his mind?

“What?”

“Time travel is...complicated. I’ll try to explain: imagine to have on a paper the detailed descriptions of every single event that has ever happened from the origins of the world.”

“Travelling back in time and changing things would be like writing over those events. Sometimes you can cover completely what was written before, sometimes traces remain, sometimes there is just not enough space to do it. You could write over the meeting with her. I could write over the meeting with your mother.”

Percy raised his head again, curious and scared and so,so tempted by his offer, “What would happen then?” he asked, “What would happen if you were to never meet her?”

“You would be my son,” Poseidon answered after a long pause, words slow and chosen carefully “you would be my son and not your mother’s”.

Percy swallowed again, feeling his throat dry and his stomach empty, “I…” he started, but then, a sudden thought came to his mind and he stood up quickly, anxiety flooding his body, ”Elissa!” he screamed, “Oh shit, oh shit. What time it is? Oh gods, what time it is? How long have I been here?”

He looked panicked at his father, who stared at the sky above him: “It’s an hour before sunset,” he answered. “The bride has been bathed and the sacrifices have been made. But the _anakalupteria_ has yet to happen even if it’ll be a matter of minutes”, he continued, looking at Percy, and seeing him paling he sighed, “Go. I shall make sure you reach her in time. But Perseus-” he started, and Percy halted, hearing his full name and knowing something important was about to be said:

“Remember what I have told you. Make your choice and remember- whatever it will be, do not fear to ask for help, if ever you would need it. The seas at your command. Be careful.” he added, smiling with a strange expression, as if knowing already what Percy would choose.

Percy turned towards him but to express his thanks, but Poseidon had already gone, leaving Percy to the destiny of men and at the mercy of gods.

~~~

Annabeth had been exhausting herself for days.

Since Percy had left, without a goodbye nor a message for her, she had spent her time working, working and working until she collapsed on her bed or, more often, in Percy’s.  
Chiron hadn’t approved of course, especially after the news of Hazel and Nico’s deaths: he was worried for her and, sincerely, she was worried for herself as well. In four days she had become a shadow of herself, and the few seconds in which she had believed Percy to be dead had taken ten years out of her life.

Her brothers and sisters had tried to cheer her up, and so had tried Leo with his jokes, and even Chiron had given her a two hours long speech about living with anxiety, and an even longer one when he had found out what she intended to do.  
But Annabeth had not changed her mind, for there was a person to whom she wanted to spare the horrible pain of hearing of their death in a call, a person to whom she wanted to grieve with.

So she had packed a light bag and had started walking, destination unknown but not for much longer, since she intended to be guided by the forest’s nymphs and the water spirits, by the strong pull of her instincts.

It was time to meet the Huntresses. It was time to meet Thalia.

She was convinced of that, but it was difficult to keep considering it a good idea after having walked in the total darkness for hours, without knowing whether she was going closer or farther from them. Her feet hurt and she was tired of having to keep listening to every little sound of the forest, in case a monster was near. She had already killed five and, while she had not gotten seriously hurt, she could bet on her left toe to be broken, which made it harder to continue walking.

After a few more hours had passed, she stopped on a place the nymphs informed her to be a safe clearing. She started a fire as Chiron had taught her, and then she noted that there was a river nearby and washed herself quickly, missing Percy even more at the thought of all the moments they had spent playing in the water together.  
But she was too tired to be nostalgic and she laid down on the soft grass, trying to fall asleep by looking at stars that shined no more, at a dark sky that held nothing but broken vows and listening to the steady sound of the river’s currents, almost a lullaby of safety and peace.

A lullaby interrupted by the sound of voices and steps, that made Annabeth stand up quickly and get closer to the fire, dagger in hand.

“Who’s there?” she screamed, “Thalia?”

None of the figures answered, instead shuffling closer, and Annabeth tightened her grip on her dagger, heart beating as fast as nymphs run and brain trying to come up with a plan to get away from there. Would she manage to cross the river? Probably yes but she would be too slow and if they were monsters they would kill her before she could reach the other side. Would she be safe if she climbed a tree? No, no she wouldn’t. Not for much at least.  
She tried to think, but the constant tiredness had taken a toll on her ability to do so, and before she could take a decision, thirteen torches encircled her.

They did not belong to the Huntresses.  
They did not belong to monsters.

 

Annabeth’s dagger fell on the ground.

“ _Mom_ ?”, she asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are with another chapter!  
> Percy is alive, Annabeth has made an interisting meeting...  
> Will I ever be able to not finish with a cliffhanger? Who knows!


	10. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this chapter, so I hope you're gonna like it too!!

Percy run wildly across the beach and into the city, barely turning to utter his apologies to the people he accidentally crashed against, in a hurry to reach the king’s castle before the _gamos_ , the wedding, was finalized with the removal of Elissa’s veil.  
He run and run, until his breath became shaky and his feet wobbly, trying to find the right way in the maze of Corinth’s tight streets. He had already took a wrong turn twice and he couldn’t afford a third: the sun was coming down quickly and Percy knew he would fail if he didn’t manage to get there before it set.

Despite this, he stopped, a voice in his head telling him to turn right.

_But the palace is to the left,_ he thought, trying to communicate with it.

_Turn right,_ the voice insisted, sounding first like his mother, then as May Castellan, _turn right._

And Percy turned right, trusting a woman he owed everything and a woman he owed nothing, trusting himself to check it out quickly before resuming his race to the palace.  
He turned in a surprisingly wide street painted with bright colours, full of flowers’ pots hanging from the houses’ walls, and found himself staring at the fountain of Pirene.

He had found it.

The voice was singing in his head, muttering words in a language so ancient that not even the first man would have been able to comprehend, and Percy’s heart was racing in desire. He only needed to dig up under the centre and there he would find the Stone and end his world’s suffering, end the darkness and be able to return to his life, to his loved ones.

He was about to reach the fountain, when the thought of Elissa struck his mind again. Percy hesitated, tired and dazzled by the sight of the finish line of his quest. Their terms were that Percy would help her in exchange for help in his quest: if he didn’t need it, then surely he couldn’t be obliged to respect his part.

_You are like all the other heroes,_ Dionysus had said, and Percy had answered that no, he was not and he would never be. But what would his thirteen years old self say now? Now that Percy was actually thinking about saying yes to that part of him who had always been like that? Elissa had married that man in the past where he hadn’t been there, and nothing irreparable had happened. _Not to the world,_ Percy found a part of his brain thinking, _but what about what happened to her?_

Selfishness was engraved in the soul of heroes, for they were children of inconsiderate gods, but love had been carved in Percy’s bones by his mother’s delicate, human fingers, and it could not be so easily erased.

Percy turned his back to the fountain.

_Forgive me father, for I cannot be your son without being my mother’s._

He started running in the opposite direction, the sky red as his blood timing his race mercilessly, making it clear to him that he would never arrive in time. Not without aid.

He focused on the sound of the Mediterranean, on the waves hitting the shore, imagining currents of power running through his veins and ending in his palms, glowing and burning and _throbbing_ for an outlet. Finally, finally, Percy let go of the power and closed his eyes, willing the green light he had created into the form of a horse, into the form of a pegasus, a unicorn, whatever could bring him faster to the palace.

When he opened his eyes again, his whole body was burning. But it was worth it, for in front of him stood a translucent stallion, his whole body made of water and his legs shining with golden light. Percy looked at it for a few seconds, in awe of what he had created. It was breathtaking and he couldn’t believe it had come from his own hands.

But when the sky darkened of a few shades, he regained quickly his composure and mounted the horse, taking the watery reins in his hands and riding towards the palace with the wind on his face and the hot rays of the sun hitting him in the back, almost urging him to go faster and faster towards the end of a world and the beginning of another.

The horse passed quickly through the narrow streets of the city, and Percy did his best to ignore the surprised looks on the passer-byes faces, even if it was hard when they screamed or fell on their knees. He didn’t want them to believe he was a god, but basically flying on a horse made of shining water probably didn’t help his case.

He arrived at the gates of the palace and the guards let him pass, scared and too awestruck to do anything, and Percy ordered the horse to follow the chatter of the people, hoping to arrive where Elissa was before it was too late. From where he was, he could hear the king finishing his speech, and blood froze in his veins: he had to make it in time.

“-shall take my daughter as your wife. Rise, son of Corinth. Rise, heir of Corinth!”

People cheered and clapped, and the man got quickly to his feet. Elissa was in front of him, veil above her face and eyes to the ground in a trained position. Her hair hadn’t been cut yet, for that was the groom’s duty after he had made her his wife by lifting her veil and Percy knew that if that were to happen, the priestesses of Athena would never accept her.

He willed the horse to go faster than light, and finally, finally arrived in the middle of the guests, crashing against offended nobles and surprised servants, his whole body unnaturally visible in the coming night.

“STOP!” he screamed, out of breath but still strong enough to be heard, “In the name of Poseidon, stop this wedding!”

Elissa lifted her head, relief and rage painted brown in her eyes, barely visible under the veil, and the groom stepped back in confusion, looking at the king with questions in his eyes. Guards surrounded him and Percy looked questioningly at them: surely they wouldn’t arrest whom they believed to be a god?

“YOU” Thoas yelled, “How dare you step foot in this palace again? You’ve taken advantage of me, you impostor!” Percy must have looked surprised, because the king added, “Oh, you thought Elissa wouldn’t tell me you were nothing but a brute mortal? Guards, arrest him!!”

Percy stared at Elissa. She had betrayed him, but he had also not respected their plan by not taking her away when they had agreed. Now, he had a split of a second to decide what to do: if he stayed still, the guards would take him in some dark cell where he would eventually die. If he run away, the guards probably wouldn’t follow him and he could reach the fountain and finish his quest, but Elissa would end up marrying that man. However, if he took Elissa with him, the guards would surely follow, and he’d had no time to retrieve the Stone. What was more important then?

_Your quest,_ his mind answered.  
 _Your word,_ his heart corrected.

Percy strode forward.

“Elissa grab my arm!” he yelled, and quickly put her in front of him on the horse’s back and rode away towards the sea, leaving the king’s screams behind him and a flock of guards on his trail.

The endlessly dark sky of his present held nothing but broken vows, but this one was covered in promises that still had to be made, in stars that shined brightly for words given and never taken back.

~~~

The thirteen gods of Olympus sat around a small fire in a remote part of a Pennsylvania’s forest, their human bodies looking exhausted and haunted, their clothes torn apart and their eyes void of their usual power.

Annabeth had no idea what to do. She was trying to divide her food supplies equally between them, but she couldn’t avoid keeping a bit to spare in her bag, for emergencies and because she didn’t want to finish the only food they had in one evening.

When everyone had eaten, without a word spoken, without the trace of an argument between them, Annabeth decided she had had enough of trying to figure it out.

“What happened?” she asked her mother, “Who did this?”

Athena raised her chin and stared at her daughter for a few seconds, the other gods stilling as she opened her mouth.

“Athena no.” Hera said, her voice steady but not louder than a whisper. “She doesn’t need to know.”

“We got turned human,” she started, unbothered.

“Athena, I order you to stop this now.” Zeus thundered, voice rough and leaving no space for disobedience.

“Brother…” Hades started, but a look from Zeus stopped him. There was no point in fighting with him when he was like that, and he had learnt it the hard way during the course of the centuries.

“I think the girl should know.” interrupted Demeter, “it’s not like things could go worse.”

“Saying that is like tempting the Fates,” answered Aphrodite, sitting between Hephaestus and Ares, “they will decide when it’s the right time for her to know.”, she concluded, both her companions nodding in agreement.

“Athena” Zeus repeated, the order clear in his tone, and the goddess shook her head and sighed, resigned.

“By whom and why it’s not important now,” she resumed, glaring at all the others around her, “you’ll find out soon enough anyway. What is important now is to find a way to reverse this. Do you have any idea my dear?”

Annabeth blinked, surprised by her mother’s affectionate words. Last time they had spoken she had screamed at her and accused her of being the cause for her and Percy’s fall in Tartarus, so she had assumed Athena would hold her grudge for longer.

“You can’t possibly expect her to have a solution,” interjected Artemis, “when all of us together couldn’t come up with anything.”

But Athena didn’t leave her eyes from Annabeth’s identical ones and she found herself forced to answer.

“Chiron sent Percy back to Ancient Corinth with the task of recovering the Restoration Stone.”

“Percy?” Poseidon interrupted with a voice that would have carried anger were it strong enough,“why is it always him? Is he okay?”

Annabeth tightened her shoulders, staring at the ground and then at the god of the Sea, “I don’t know.” she admitted, “No one has managed to communicate with him in any way. Chiron says-” she swallowed a shaky breath, “he said that there is a possibility that he has died during the travel. But I don’t think so, “she added quickly, “I think I would feel him dying.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Hades, speaking with a surprisingly soft voice, “but it doesn’t matter anyway”, he shrugged and then laughed bitterly, “this is the end”, he stated, while Hermes took his head in his hands and drew a shaky breath.

“What do you mean?” Annabeth asked, confused, looking at her mother and then at Dionysus, who hadn’t uttered a word yet. Surely they couldn’t all be sure that Percy would fail? He had succeeded in all of his quests and won two of their wars, and now they had lost faith in him?

It was then that a miserable-looking Apollo spoke with a certainty that only the truth could give, and Annabeth felt her head become lighter and lighter, her thoughts slowly circling around the same subject.

Percy had to come back immediately.

She needed to find a way to communicate with him, but her mind refused to cooperate, instead showing her flashes of the future she had lost and of the one she would live. She tried to move, to talk, but she was stuck and everything was becoming dark.

She closed her eyes.

~~~

_“Percy! Percy come on!” Annabeth laughed, her long hair loose on her shoulders, almost golden in the sunlight._

_“You’re never gonna catch us!” he smiled in return, “isn’t it right buddy? We’re faster than mummy!”_

_“Yea! Go,go!” the child laughed, tightening his grip on Percy’s hair, “Daddy run, run!”_

_Percy laughed, deeply and freely and so joyously that Annabeth couldn’t stop herself from joining him, her eyes smiling as much as her lips, love written in every inch of their stare._

~~~

Percy had to come back immediately.

~~~

_“Please stop” Percy cried messily, “please stop, stop”, he sobbed._

_There was a light around him, red as blood and gold as ichor, and Annabeth could smell his flesh burning. There was a light around him, but now it was blue as the sky and green as the sea, and Percy screamed, and screamed, while Annabeth tried to move and speak, futily._

_“This is the price” a voice spoke from the flames and Percy’s knees dropped to the ground, “this is the price for the power you asked back.”_

_Agony filled Percy’s scream and Annabeth’s vision, orange as the sunset and black as Tartarus._

~~~

Home, home, home.  
Percy had to come home immediately.

Annabeth opened her eyes, a thousand questions carved in her eyelids and lips ready to word them to gods that were no more.

But she was alone in the clearing, no sign of them if not the strong smell of doubt and helplessness that floated in the dark air around her.

Percy had to come back immediately.

The only certainty, repeated endlessly in Annabeth’s tired mind. The only thing that mattered, secured in Annabeth’s suffering heart.

She had to find a way to bring him back to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys it's a good thing I have the next two chapter ready because I haven't managed to write ANYTHING this week. It's like my brain died or something. Wish me luck!!!


	11. Chapter Ten

“Jason please, listen to me you can’t-”

“Let me go, Reyna”, he interrupted, trying to loosen her grip on his arm, “I can’t stay here and do nothing. I can’t. Please”, he muttered, looking at the Praetor in her eyes.

“There is nothing you can do!” she yelled, going closer to him, “you _must_ accept it. The only thing that you can do out of here, is dying. Do you want me to have to burn your body too? Don’t you think we have lost enough people already?”

Jason wavered, sorrow rising at the thought of Nico and Hazel, but he couldn’t stay still and wait any longer. It was turning him crazy.

“I’ll go to Annabeth”, he stated, “We’ll find a way to-” he stopped, changing his tone of voice and willing Reyna to listen, to _understand_ . “We’ll find a way to help Percy. Or to do something from here. There were two Stones, maybe, maybe there is something else we can use.”

Reyna didn’t answer, unhappiness clear in the hard set of her face. “There is nothing I can say that will make you change your mind, is there?”

Jason shook his head and Reyna loosened her grip, a sigh escaping from her lips. “What about Piper?” she asked after a while, pretending not to have seen Jason hastily wipe away a couple of tears from his face.

“She…” he paused, not finding the right words. “She’ll understand. I need to go, Reyna. I feel it. My place is somewhere else right now. I can’t stay.”

Reyna nodded and took a step further away, heading towards her desk in an aborted movement. “Promise me Jason,” she said, looking at him with her best wolf stare, “promise me you’ll be safe.” Jason opened his mouth to answer but Reyna stopped him, a weird expression on her face, “You don’t, you don’t understand. I can’t lose you again. I can’t.” she repeated, shaking her head.

Jason wanted to reassure her, to tell her he would be safe, but he knew he couldn’t make such a promise. Who could?

“I’ll be careful,” he answered, swallowing the false promise his lips were so ready to word, “and this will be over soon, in a way or another. Percy will not fail.” he stated, voice steady. 

Darkness can make people doubt their surroundings, but not their friends no, that’s the role of fear. And there was no space for it in Jason’s mind.

So he took a pegasus from the stables and flew towards the dark horizon in a desperate attempt to reach Camp Half-Blood in one piece, thinking about the people he was leaving behind but failing in regretting his decision.

Jupiter was also the god of Justice and Jason knew in his heart what was wrong and what was right. And this was the right thing to do.

 

~~~

 

Percy guided the horse through the narrow streets of the city, dozens of guards following him from all sides. It felt like one of those scenes in the cheap action movies he used to rent with his mother, where the good guy is surrounded but somehow manages to escape. Only that this time, Percy wasn’t sure he was the good guy: for what the king knew in fact, he had kidnapped his daughter, so sending guards after him had been the most sensible choice.

Elissa gripped his chiton tightly in her hands, almost in an embrace, and accosted her mouth to his ear. “Are you angry at me?”, she asked, barely audible under the sound of the yelling guards and of the hooves touching the ground.

Percy gritted his teeth and forced himself to calm down. “How do we get to the fountain from here?”, he asked back, ignoring her question, almost yelling in the hope of not being misheard.

“They’re going towards the southern door!!”, shouted one of the guards, “Ring the bells! Ring the bells!”, shouted another, while the people on the streets tried to get inside their homes as quickly as possible and the children cried.

“On the right! Now, NOW!”, yelled the princess, and Percy tugged the reins with all of his force, willing the watery horse to turn without slowing down too much. “Where now?” he asked, coming towards two possible streets, “Elissa! Where now?” he asked again, trying now to slow down the horse to give her time to decide. “I don’t- ” she started, while they were getting closer and closer to the crossroad, “I can’t recognize this place!” she screamed finally and Percy tried to halt the horse, afraid that the wrong street would bring them back to the palace. “Stop, stop, STOP!” he yelled, but the horse seemed deaf, running wildly towards the house standing between the two streets.

Elissa screamed, fearing the crush against the wall and at this Percy turned back, thinking a guard had accidentally shot her with an arrow instead of him, but in his hurry he left his grip on the reins. Panic filled his body and he tried to grab on the horse’s mantle, before realizing that the horse didn’t actually have one, for it was made of water.

“COVER YOUR HEAD!” he yelled, and then grabbed the princess and threw both of them on the ground, trying to shield her from the impact with his body. They hit the sandy ground harshly, but the pain was not as strong as Percy had expected, adrenaline protecting him from it and helping him in thinking quickly and clearly. He raised to his feet at once, taking Elissa up with him and checking her for injuries. 

“Are you alright?” he asked, and when she nodded, sand flying everywhere and falling from her hair and clothes, he smiled and stepped back, looking at the puddle of water that had once been an horse. “Goodbye” he whispered to the wind, “and thank you for bringing me to her”.

“Perseus we must go. Now!”

“They’re here, they’re here!” someone screamed, and guards surrounded them from every side, while the bells on the city’s towers started to ring, mercilessly declaring the closure of the doors.

“NO!” Elissa screamed, backing down against Percy, “NO!” she sobbed, “no, please, don’t let them take me, Perseus please, please, _please_ .”

Percy swallowed a shaky breath. There was only one thing he could do.

He took Elissa’s wrists and locked them behind her back in a swift movement, holding them with his left hand, and a pained sound escaped from her lips. “Trust me”, Percy whispered in her ear, her sandy hair touching his lips, and as soon as she nodded, his right hand unsheathed his sword… and placed it on the princess’ neck.

She gasped, but Percy ignored her and instead stared hardly at the guards. “Let me leave this city,” he started, addressing the one who seemed the commander, “And your precious princess will remain… unharmed” he concluded, showing his teeth in an angry grin.

The guards hesitated, waiting for an order. The bells were still ringing, and Percy was trying to come up with a way to get out of the city without using the doors. Climbing the walls was out of the question, since they would shoot him on sight, and he didn’t know anyone from the lower city who may have known a secret passage. So, in simple words, he was fucked.

But the guards didn’t have to know that, and Elissa neither. It was better if they all believed him to have a good plan, so he waited, feeling Elissa tremble against the cold metal of his sword.

“Shoot him! Shoot him on the back!” the king shouted, arriving on horseback followed by a dozen of archers with flaming arrows.

Elissa screamed and he turned, facing the king trying to avoid the arrows. But as soon as he did that, the guards from before lunged towards his now exposed back, and Percy felt panic once again rising in his throat. _Father help_ , he prayed, remembering Poseidon’s words, _Please_ , he begged, and suddenly he felt a new energy in his veins, as if his powers had just awoken from a deep sleep.

He laughed and held tightly on Elissa, “When we’re up, look below and tell me where the fountain is”, he whispered. “What?” she answered, confused and scared and so impossibly young. She probably wanted to ask something else, but she did not have the opportunity, for Percy let go of his sword and screamed, raising his right hand to the sky.

The ground shook beneath them and the guards stopped, confused and the king screamed at the archers while a geyser erupted from the sand, shooting Percy and the princess up in the sky and into the clouds, away from flaming arrows, rusty swords and unwanted marriages.

“Elissa!” he yelled, but there was no need, for she had finally understood his earlier words. “LEFT!” she managed to say, despite the shock. “Oh my gods” she muttered, eyes shining from tears and awe “Oh my gods”.

Percy directed the shot of water to his left, until Elissa told him to stop. “We’re above it!” she said, “But everyone is gonna see where we are now.” She had expected Percy to be concerned by this, but instead he laughed, his eyes almost gold in the dark night. “Let them watch then”, he answered, glee in his voice, “It’s not everyday that they see people saving the world, after all.”

And with that the geyser stopped and they started falling and falling towards the hard marble of the fountain, Percy laughing and Elissa praying all the deities she knew for his plan to work, feeling like Icarus and Ariadne at the same time. 

But most of all, feeling free for what probably was the first time in her life.

 

~~~

_Apollo had sighed and had looked everywhere but at Annabeth._

_“The Stone has a price”, he had said, “a desire for a desire. It will give us our powers back if Percy asks for it, and in exchange it will steal his greatest wish from his heart.”_

_“Which is coming home. And seeing you again I guess”, had explained Athena._

_“Yes,” had resumed Apollo, “it’s the reason why Chiron told him he needed to wish for us to come back from the depth of his heart. If what the person asks and his greatest desire are the same thing… well, in that case there would be no side effects. But it has never happened.”_

_Annabeth had swallowed, heart clenching in her chest. “So Percy would remain stuck there forever?” she had asked, fearing the answer._

_“No my dear,” had responded Aphrodite, wiping tears from her cheeks, “worse. Much worse, sweetheart. Much worse.”_

_“You must find a way to bring him back before he uses it” Poseidon had said, worry and helplessness in his voice. “Find a way, daughter of Athena, or my son will be lost to us forever.”_

 

~~~

 

The Earth has not always been loved.

There was a time before humans, where only animals roamed in the interminable lands and in the endless oceans, in the vast skies inhabited by lonely gods and selfish titans, who did not care about them.

Then one day, men were created. And they saw the crying ground and comforted it with plants and flowers, they met doleful animals and picked them up, gave them food and made them their best friends. They saw the infinite darkness of the night sky and did not cower in fear, but painted it with stories and happy endings, and used it to find their way back home when everything seemed lost.

And they loved the Earth and the animals and they loved each other even when they shouldn’t have. And they invented this love and what to do to convey it and then spread it all over the five continents such a long time ago that now we have forgotten love is so undeniably human that it has not always existed.

There was an age before us and there will be an age after us too, and the only thing that is worthy worrying about is whether love will be one of our legacies or if the world will have to live without it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your love for this story keeps me going when I don't think I can, so thank you all!!!!


	12. Chapter Eleven

Annabeth walked back towards Camp quickly, every intention of meeting with Thalia abandoned. She had wanted to talk to her, but if she didn’t think of a plan to bring Percy back before he used the Stone she would have to tell her not about two, but three deaths. And she really had no intention of doing that, so her best plan for now was to go back to Camp and ask for Chiron’s help.

Sticks and leaves cracked under her feet, and Annabeth hoped not to encounter any other monster: the forest was creepy enough even without them. She felt watched, as if the trees had suddenly grown eyes of their own and every little sound made her flinch and tighten the grip around her dagger. It had been so weird to meet the human forms of the gods that Annabeth couldn’t avoid being still creeped out by it. Where had they spent all the first weeks of this mess? And what had happened to them that Zeus didn’t want her to know?

If someone had done this to them, surely they would have wanted revenge, so it had made no sense. And it also had been unexpected the fact that none of them had no idea on how to fix the situation, not even her mother. Artemis was right, how could they expect her to find a way?

After maybe a day, maybe less of walking, she finally arrived at the foot of the Camp’s hill. She stared at the top, amazed by the fact that the she had had to fight only with a lonely empousa, who had given her little trouble. Maybe the monsters had been discouraged by the presence of the former gods?

Her thoughts were then suddenly interrupted by the sound of wings above her. She raised her head and tried to see what animal they belonged to, but everything was too dark and the faint light of her torch wasn’t enough. She started climbing the hill, careful not to make too much noise and catch the attention of whatever was flying above her head and she had almost managed to reach the top when the sky rumbled and “STOP!”, a voice thundered in the darkness. “You’re not going to harm Camp Half-Blood, you dirty monster!”

Annabeth had barely the time to launch herself to the right, before a shot of lightnings hit the place where she had been standing before and a pegasus landed in front of the Camp’s entrance. She stood up, ready to attack back, when the light of her torch hit the face of the rider.

“Jason?” Annabeth asked, surprised, “What the fuck man?”

Even the son of Jupiter seemed surprised by her presence but the sky stopped rumbling and he got off from the pegasus, a torch in his hand too. “Annabeth!” he exclaimed, “Oh my gods I am so sorry I thought it was a mons-”

“It doesn’t matter”, she interrupted, “what are you doing here? Did something happen? Do you have news of Percy?”

She walked quickly towards Jason, and he shook his head sadly. “I don’t have any news of Percy but…” he shook his head again and sighed, resigned “I do have news. Kind of. And they’re not really great. Maybe it’s better if we discuss it later.”

“Tell me now”, she started, “I am sure I’ve heard worse. And if it could help us even a little…”

Jason chuckled and his shoulders dropped, as if every will of fighting had suddenly abandoned him. “Yeah,” he said, “I… I had a couple of dreams while I was coming here. _Weird_ dreams and-” he trembled, as if his whole body was fighting against what he was going to say, “I have a theory on what might have happened to the gods. And it’s…”

“They’re human.” Annabeth interrupted, “I know. I’ve met them”

Jason raised his head and looked at her incredulous “What? You’ve met them? When?” Annabeth was about to answer but Jason started talking again, “No,” he said, shaking his head and walking closer to Annabeth, “that’s not what I meant. I… think I know _how they lost_ their powers.” he whispered.

Annabeth winced and looked around herself as if expecting someone to assault them at any moment. “You were right. Not here,” she whispered back, “come, let’s talk with Chiron. I have news too and I don’t want to repeat the story more times than necessary”:

Saying it once without crying would be hard enough.

They crossed the entrance in silence, Annabeth not trusting herself to speak steadily and Jason too busy enjoying the light of the artificial sun that shone inside the Camp’s borders and the laughter of the younger children, playing in the grass unaware of the dangers of their time. Jason envied them greatly, for they had that chance at being children that he had been denied by Hera and by Camp Jupiter’s ways. Would he have been a completely different person had he had the possibility to just _be_? Jason liked to think he would have still fundamentally been the same, but he will never have the certainty.

They walked quickly towards the Great House and found Chiron in his human form, sitting in his wheelchair behind a wooden desk covered in hundreds of papers and documents. As soon as they entered Chiron’s gaze raised to meet theirs, and his face shifted in a surprised expression before returning neutral.

“Annabeth,” he started, “I didn’t think you would be back so soon. But I’m glad to see you unharmed. And Jason- “ he added, “It’s good to have you here. Is everything alright at your Camp?”

Jason nodded and Chiron motioned for him and Annabeth to sit down in front of him, knowing that something must have happened for them to have come to him with such haste. Jason sat down but Annabeth hesitated, an angry expression on her face.

“Did you know what could happen?” Annabeth asked, gripping the back of the chair and refusing to sit down, “Did you?” she asked again, slightly raising her voice.

Jason had no idea of what he was talking about but Chiron sighed and put down the papers he was holding. “Percy knew it was dangerous. I told him there could have been side effects and he accepted anyway. What happened?” he asked back.

Annabeth bit her lower lip, a gesture Jason had come to associate with her nervousness, but she seemed to momentainly let go of the argument and sat down. “I met the gods” she started, and Jason noted that Chiron didn’t look even a bit as surprised as he had, “They were human”, she continued, “and they told me that if Percy uses the Stone while his heart wishes to come home he will be lost forever. Whatever that could mean.” she concluded, voice trembling and eyes fixed on the desk, looking without seeing.

Chiron nodded slowly and paused, as if he was carefully choosing his words. Jason had the feeling that the old centaur had already known what had happened to the gods, and he couldn’t avoid wondering about what _exactly_ he had told Percy, since Annabeth was so convinced that he had not been totally sincere.

“Have you not asked them to come to Camp?” he asked, and Annabeth tensed, her whole body vibrating with anger and sadness and some deep emotion Jason couldn’t even come close to understand.

“What will happen to Percy?” she asked instead of answering, looking straight into Chiron’s eyes for a moment, before he averted them and stared at his papers instead.

“It could be dangerous for them to stay outside with the monsters”, he continued, as if Annabeth had never spoken, and Jason felt anger rise in his throat on her behalf. He had sent Percy on a suicide mission completely alone and now he refused to even admit it: was that really the same Chiron Percy so respectfully talked about?

Annabeth made a low, guttural sound and then fast as the winter’s wind she jumped on the desk and in a swift movement locked her dagger on Chiron’s exposed throat, and pressed.

“Maybe I haven’t been clear enough,” she started, while Jason had jumped from his chair in an abandoned attempt to stop her, “but you _will_ tell me exactly what these consequences are. I am not Percy and a generic ‘something could go wrong’ won’t suffice.”

Jason swallowed harshly, looking at Chiron, whose calm expression had never faltered. “Annabeth my dear,” he answered while grabbing the blade, “I would have told you if I could. But I can’t”, he said, and taking advantage of Annabeth’s hesitation he lowered her blade towards the desk in a gesture she didn’t fight.

“Why not?” Jason asked, since Annabeth seemed unable to talk, as if all her energy had abandoned her once she had realized what she had done.

“Because you would try to take him back here,” he sighed, “and that would be a disaster. For the world and for him both. Please, you must believe me. I care about him too.”

“Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you dare.” Annabeth gritted through her teeth. ”You have done nothing but use him for all these years. He’s not your _pawn_ , he’s not your _weapon_ , and you will tell me _exactly_ what the gods meant. Or I’m gonna kill you.” she added.

“Annabeth…” Jason started, going closer to her, “Come on, let’s not worsen the situation.”

But the girl didn’t even consider his words, and Chiron sighed again, taking Annabeth’s wrist in his hand. “Annabeth please don’t make it more difficult than it is already. I can’t tell you. I won’t tell you. You’re intelligent enough to know that’s the best thing.” 

Annabeth hesitated for a long moment. “The best thing-” she laughed harshly, “The best thing would have been for Percy to have never come here when you asked,” she said.

And then pressed her dagger into the centaur’s old and battered heart.

 

~~~

_Artemis had been on a hunt when she had first felt his fury._  
She hadn’t been afraid of the thunder, nor of the storm.  
But when the lightning had stricken, she had screamed. 

_(for she knew she had become a prey like the ones she hunted)_

~~~

They did not hit the marble bottom of the fountain.

Instead, the water rose for a few feet and met them in the air in some form of embrace, softening the hit and muffling the screams of the scared peasants that were around the fountain. Percy had barely the time to think about how Chiron had made him promise not to use his powers and on how instead, now everyone had seen him use them and the rumour would spread quickly. Oh well. Too late to change that now.

Then, a few seconds later they were in the fountain, standing in the centre with a wall of water around them. “Wow” said Elissa, looking around herself, “This is amazing.”

Percy smiled and let go of her. “Come on,” he said, “let’s dig up this bloody Stone”.

He bent down and started hitting the now dry foundal with the tilt of his sword, hissing for the fatigue every time he made it clash with the hard marble. “Take my dagger”, he said taking it out of his belt, “Can you try to put it into the cracks and move it around to open them more?”

Elissa nodded and took the dagger from his hand, but she stayed up and started to move it around in her hands, studying the dagger and… playing with it? 

“Elissa?” Percy asked again, raising his eyes to meet her own, “is everything alright?”

She hesitated for a few, eternal seconds and Percy started to believe that the shock had hit her harder than he had believed at first, when finally she answered.

“You’re never going to take me to Athens, are you?”

“What?” Percy asked, confused “Of course I am. If I didn’t want to, I’d have left you at the palace.”

She shook her head, slowly. “You needed me to find the fountain. But when you’ll retrieve the Stone you’ll have no use for me. What’ll stop you from just leaving?”

“I made you a promise. That’s enough to stop me.” he said, standing up and warily eyeing the dagger, “Elissa please believe me. I’ll do my best to keep it.”

“You weren’t there before. I waited at the window for hours. You had promised and you didn’t come.”

“Yes. But I was there when it mattered. I _did_ stop your wedding. And sincerely? I did more for you than you did for me” he said, hitting the fountain whit much more strength than before, taking out his anger on the marble.

Elissa bit her lower lip and came forward, dagger in hand. A part of Percy believed she was going to try to stab him, but instead the princess kneeled down and placed the blade inside one of the cracks Percy had made.

“Like this?” she asked, and Percy sighed, nodding, while she tried to widen them up.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm down from his sudden outburst of rage. He had no idea from where all that anger had come from: one moment he was fine and the other he had felt it, hot and painful pushing in his head, throbbing in his veins. He had been ready to kill and what scared him the most was that for a second he had desired to, blinded by a thousand of accumulated moments in which he had repressed his fury. But still, it hadn’t been fair to the girl, so he opened his mouth to apologize before suddenly changing his mind: by complying with his request Elissa had effectively closed the argument, for better or worse.

He resumed his work and they went on for hours in complete silence, listening to the sound of the guards outside of the wall of water Percy had created around them: keeping it up for such a long time was exhausting him and he had no idea for how long he would be able to keep it up. So when they finally, _finally_ opened a hole through the marble and into the stone stratum where the water was flowing he couldn’t avoid a small chuckle of delight. “We’re almost done”, he said to Elissa, trying to lighten up the mood with a casual tone “As soon as I have it we can leave the city. Do you know of any passage we could take?”

“Yes”, she nodded, “we could pass through the old tunnels. They were built as a way to escape from a siege or as a quicker route for merchants, but no one has used them since-”

“Since what?”

“Nothing. It’s a dumb story some old woman made up. They say they’re cursed. And that once you enter there you can never leave.”

“Oh” answered Percy, “sounds fun”.

Elissa chuckled and bit her lower lip, glancing at him for a second, and Percy could feel she wanted to ask him something so he waited for her to find the courage while he tried to push the remaining marble from below, using the fountain’s ancient and powerful water.

“You keep talking about having to find this Stone”, she finally dared to ask, “but you’ve never told me why exactly you’re looking for it. Maybe… maybe I could help you more if you told me.”

Percy hesitated. “It’s my quest,” he then started, choosing not to trust her, “I’ve not been told why I need to find it. Just to do so.”

“And you haven’t asked? What if it’s dangerous?”

Percy chuckled, but there was no humour in it. “Oh, _it is_ dangerous Elissa. But don’t worry. I won’t do anything with it until you’re safe inside Athena’s temple.”

Elissa nodded, but she didn’t seem convinced and Percy discovered that he actually did not care whether she believed him or not. He wished for a second to have never met her, for if he hadn’t made that damn promise, now he would be close to return home to his friends and, especially, to Annabeth. Had she tried to follow him? He would have.

“Perseus look!” Elissa exclaimed, interrupting his thoughts and pointing at the hole in the fountain’s floor where, covered in dirt and stone dust, something was shining. “Oh gods”, Percy said, before putting his hand in the hole and taking out a small, oval rock, “Oh gods”, he repeated, smiling and almost caressing the Stone.

“Elissa”, he said, his green eyes shining in the moonlight, “Elissa” he repeated, the water dancing around them in swift movements, “This is my ticket home”, he said with awe in his voice. “I did it”, he laughed, “I did it!” he repeated, and Elissa laughed with him, his joy contagious but, sadly, not long-lasting, since Percy immediately returned serious and placed the Stone safely at the bottom of his bag.

“We need to leave the city now”, he asserted after the bag was secured on his shoulders, and Elissa could only agree, relieved that Percy seemed to have forgotten their earlier squabble. She was about to return him the dagger, but Percy shook his head. “Keep it,” he said, “who knows if you’ll need it again.” and so Elissa placed it again at her belt, hiddenly relieved: she liked having the means to protect herself, even if she didn’t really know how to.

Percy took her hand in his. “Hold tight”, he said. 

Then the walls of water crashed against them and raised them into the sky, a couple of feet above the incredule faces of the soldiers. Percy felt the power slowly leave him, but he only had to resist for a few more minutes. A few more minutes, he could do that. 

“That’s the entrance!” Elissa yelled, and Percy tried to see where she was pointing, but he couldn’t. His vision became black and the last thing he heard was the princess’ panicked voice.

A few more minutes. He could _not_ do that.

 

~~~

_“NO!” Athena had screamed. But it had been useless, for the fall of her temple had taken away her voice and silenced her yells._

_A thunder. A lightning._

_And then she was gone, wisdom crumbling with her._

_(she would never admit she had not understood what was actually happening)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> This chapter is a bit slower (and longer) but things needed to happen and feelings needed to be felt...  
> See you next week!


	13. Chapter Twelve

Elissa had never been happy. Sure, she had had good moments. She had been cheerful.   
But she had never known true happiness.   
She had wanted great things, a great future, and she had believed that the dark-haired boy she had just met could give it to her, handed on a silver plate. She had believed him capable of everything: how could she not, after hearing him talk back to her scary father? Trusting him had been her destiny, and maybe dying for him was too.

Surely it seemed like that while she dragged his unconscious body through the dusty streets of the city she had never felt as hers, ( _you should have been a boy,_ her father had told her the day of her tenth birthday, _everything would have been easier_ ) panting from the fatigue and hurting from the fall. She could hear the soldiers marching in the main street next to the dark alley she had hidden in, where she had heard the entrance to the old tunnels under the city was. It was a forbidden topic in her family, for they had been greatly wanted by her great-grandfather and then abandoned after only a few years and thousand of wasted drachmas that the people had complained about, but not even her father had managed to stop her from listening to her maid’s stories and to the gardners’ whispered comments about their supposed curse.

It was almost dawn when she finally managed to find an opening in the ground, covered only by a thin layer of iron and sand and with her dagger she tried to force the lock open.

“Percy”, she whispered when she realized she didn’t have enough strength to do so, “Perseus wake up, come on”, she said shaking his shoulder until the boy slowly opened his eyes. “What?” he said groggily, voice rough, “What happened? Elissa?”

“I’m here”, she answered, “you passed out and I dragged you to the tunnels’ entrance. Come on, help me open the manhole.”

“We fell?”

“We fell.”

“Oh”, he said getting up and taking the dagger from the princess’ hand. “I’m sorry”, he said and in a swift movement he broke the lock and forcefully opened the iron clasp, so effortlessly that Elissa wondered again whether he was actually a god or not. It would have been the trick of the century. Gods, she would become known as that idiot girl who did a quest with a god and didn’t even realize.

She slowly lowered herself inside the tunnel, and as soon as her feet were safely placed on the soft ground Percy followed, covering the entrance again and locking them in the cold, dark and smelly underground.

“We should have brought a torch”, Elissa said, feeling Percy breathing somewhere on her right, “It’s pitch black in here”.

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “It’s usually Annabeth who thinks about this kind of useful things”, he said, and then he stilled, as if he had said something he hadn’t wanted to. 

“Annabeth?” Elissa asked, taking Percy’s arm and starting to walk, her other hand touching the left wall of the tunnel to avoid losing the way.

“My girlfriend.” he answered, without giving any further details. Elissa wanted to press him for more information, since it was an unusual name for a greek woman and she had never heard anything of the kind. Maybe she came from far away, from the same place that had given Percy that weird accent she had never heard before? But she didn’t have the occasion, for Percy immediately changed the topic.

“Why are these tunnels supposed to be cursed?” he questioned, still following Elissa’s lead through the various turns, “They seem quite harmless.”

Elissa sighed. “The men who had worked on their construction all died horribly a few weeks after it was finished. Some slaughtered all of their families and then killed themselves. Some were just found dead down here, without an apparent reason.”

“People started to say that these tunnels were inhabited by evil spirits, and my great-grandfather Aeolus was forced to close them off. Children still came here to play, but even that stopped after a few more months. They said they saw monsters. Some got lost and died of starvation. A few bodies were found by fishermen. Which should have not been possible, since these tunnels don’t go towards the sea.”

Percy shivered next to her, but didn’t stop walking. “Well,” he started, “Maybe since no one comes here anymore they got bored and went away”.

“It’s just a story. I don’t think it actually happened.”

Percy chuckled, but his tone was bitter. “I think some of it did”, he whispered, “because we’re not alone down here.”

He halted and Elissa stopped with him, her heart beating so fast that she was sure Percy could hear it from under her skin. He slowly unsheathed his sword and the blade started to glow faintly in the darkness, enlightening the tunnel just enough to make it even creepier. An abandoned passage underground should have been full of insects and spider’s webs, but it was totally empty: the walls were clean and the wooden beams of the ceiling had resisted intacted decades of usury and of rain.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t took out my sword sooner,” he murmured, “But its faint glow in the darkness brings out bad memories.”

Elissa looked at him questioningly, and was about to ask more when suddenly a rush of wind passed between them. She heard a crackling sound.

And then- then the torches on the walls turned on, and the flames seemed to laugh of their disbelief.

Percy moved his sword in front of him, ready to attack. “Who’s there?” he asked, voice as steady as Elissa had never heard, and eyes darker than the bottom of the ocean, not a trace of his earlier softness in them.

No one answered, and Elissa grabbed his arm. “Come on”, she said after a few more moments of silence, “let’s go away from here”.

Percy slowly nodded and followed her lead in the now perfectly enlightened tunnel, without never lowering his sword and warily eyeing their surroundings.  
Obviously something had turned the torches on, but what? Elissa felt lost. She hadn’t believed in her servants’ stories and now she was going to pay the price of it and going to make Percy pay it too. The tunnels had been her idea, and so their death would have been her fault: there was no way for them to get out of there alive. They couldn’t fight against a deity. It was even useless to try, so why was she still walking?

“Elissa”, someone said on her right, “Elissa what’s wrong? We must go on, come on”

“It’s useless,” she found herself saying, “let’s just wait here. We’re going to be free soon.”

Percy cursed. “Elissa I think the spirit got you. No, no-” he started when she looked at him with terror in her eyes, “don’t panic. Tell me what you feel. Can you do that? If we recognize who it is we can fight it”

Elissa nodded, but she felt too tired to speak. What use was it? Percy couldn’t fight the spirit and neither could she. So why try? A part of her wanted to give up.

But hope- hope gives strength. And Percy had given her hope with his promise and another part of her had emerged from it, one that her father had so desperately tried to bury. A part that wanted to see the sun again. A part that wanted to bathe in the bluest of the waters. A part that wanted to tend to Athena’s sacred flame until her hair grew white and her skin fell off. A part that was ready to fight for herself.

“I feel-” she started with difficulty, “desperate. Useless. And-” she swallowed, “pain” she breathed out, “sadness. So much sorrow.”

Fat tears were rolling on her cheeks now and she fell down on the sandy pavement, while Percy distanced himself from her.  
“Okay,” he said, “okay. Gods I wish she was here. I wish she was here. She would know.” he murmured, before falling on his knees in front of her.

Elissa raised his eyes towards him, and gasped. “Your bag”, she muttered, “it’s glowing.”

But Percy made no sign of having heard her, his hands uselessly grasping the brownish sand and his sword disregarded on the ground next to him.

“She has found someone else”, he then said, “she has cheated on me”, he angrily muttered, “because she found someone better. Someone who never leaves her alone.”

Elissa felt sleep slowly come over her and cover her body as a soft blanket during winter time. Something of what Percy had said seemed wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It must have been the spirit. Yes, yes it was its fault. She needed to snap Percy out of its influence, but she couldn’t. She was useless. Weak. She would die here without having ever succeeded in anything in her life.

“I want her to be here”, Percy repeated, while the flames of the torches became bigger and bigger until she was unable to see anything else. She needed to do something but she couldn’t remember what it was anymore. Why had she come here?

_Freedom_. She had come here to chase it across the mountains and the desert. Across the earth and the sea, across her pain and her dreams.

“Perseus” she whispered at the broken boy in front of her, his name like a prayer in the blinding light, an anchor in the anguish she was feeling. An anguish that wasn’t hers, but the spirit’s: she was too close to freedom for it to be hers.

“Leave us!” she screamed with her last grain of lucidity and for an eternal second inside of her there was only emptiness and her breath got caught in her throat but then- then hope filled the void, gratitude covered it and happiness peeked out from the cracks.

But darkness- darkness claimed her nonetheless, and when she opened her eyes again the torches had turned off again, all apart from one.

All apart from one, that Percy was holding in his hand, while with the other hand he had taken the shiny Stone out of the bag and was now keeping it above the red flame, that reflected in his eyes seemed to burn brighter than a thousand suns.

“I want Annabeth to be here” he said, and Elissa had no idea what to answer. He had cursed her before, and accused her of having betrayed him. Had it been true? Or was it the spirit talking?

“Is it what you need to use the Stone for?” she finally asked, “Is that your quest?”

Percy raised his gaze towards her and that seemed to snap him out of whatever had been happening. “No,” he murmured, “Oh gods. Oh gods no” he said and quickly go to his feet, seeming surprised by the fact that he was several steps away from his sword.  
Elissa got up too and took the lit torch from Percy’s hand while he put the now-not-glowing Stone away in the bag again and secured his sword in his belt again.

“They were the Algea,” he then explained, “the three spirits of anguish, pain and distress. They got you while-” he swallowed and looked away from Elissa, pretending to sweep some sand from his chiton, “Phthónos got me. The spirit of jealousy and envy,” he laughed bitterly.

“He told me. That’s the only reason I know their names. He told me in… in exchange for a favour.”

“A favour?” she asked, worried. She had learnt from myths that owing a favour to an immortal was never a good idea, especially if the immortal in question was a spirit you couldn’t see nor fight.

“Yes”, he answered, “It was the only way to get them to leave us. I’m sorry that I… that I couldn’t fight it. I don’t know how he… I love her, Elissa. I know she loves me too. She wouldn’t… I know that but still-”

“Hey it’s okay”, Elissa interrupted. She had thought she had been the one to send the spirits away but apparently her words had been useless and she found out that she actually didn’t care. “You’re tired and it got advantage of that. Don’t blame yourself.” 

Percy nodded, even if he didn’t seem convinced. “There was another spirit here with them. Mania.”

“The spirit of insanity?”

“Yes. Phthónos said she was caged by one of your great uncles. He swore that they will leave us alone if we free her.”

Elissa looked at him, some of her previous anguish coming back. “And you believed him?”

Percy shook his shoulders, and his whole body seemed to tremble, “I had no other choice,” he answered, “they were going to kill us. Worse, they were going to let us slowly be consumed by our own emotions.”

“Their emotions,” Elissa corrected, “not ours. Theirs”

Percy nodded and she sighed and walked towards him, until they were so close she could see his chest rise and fall at the rhythm of his breathing. He looked questioningly at her but she gave him no time to move away and engulfed him in the tightest hug she had ever given. Percy laughed softly somewhere above her dirty hair and then he returned the gesture, patting her back in a gesture of comfort.

“We can do this, Elissa”, he whispered, “we can do everything. Their emotions made us weak, but ours...ours will make us invincible”.

 

~~~

_Hades had known it was going to happen and he had smiled.  
He knew better than anyone that there was nothing to fear from death._

_(and he had refused to be afraid of his own realm)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It had been a long time since the last I gave Percy a whole chapter, hadn'it?  
> Hope you've enjoyed this as much as I liked writing it.  
> As always, thank you to all the ones who comment and give kudos!!


	14. Chapter Thirteen

_Apollo had prayed to the thunder._  
_Apollo had begged the lightning._  
_His last thought was the belief they had gone unheard._

_(the truth was that they had been heard but not listened to)_

 

~~~

Annabeth sat cross-legged on Percy’s bed, a bunch of ancient books spread on the sheets next to her. She was desperately trying to find more informations about the Stone and his effects, but she had only found a drawing and a small description of it that hadn’t added anything to what she knew already.

“Will says Chiron is going to be fine,” said Jason entering in the room with a few more books, “But in the meantime I raided the forbidden section, so then don’t go around saying I don’t do anything for you”, he joked, and Annabeth chuckled.

“Well let’s hope there is something useful in them, because all of these” she said gesturing to the ones on the bed “were more than useless. And Jason, about Chiron… I’m sorry I don’t know what-”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he interrupted, “talk to him. It’s been a difficult period for both of you. He’ll understand.”

Annabeth nodded, but Jason knew she probably wasn’t going to follow his advice. He sighed and sat in front of her, laying the books next to the others.

“Annabeth,” he started, “these are the last books. You’ve read everything else. If there is nothing even in these…”

“There will be something” she stated, looking at him with the unyielding gaze of who refuses the possibility of a failure, “Chiron must have learnt it somewhere. I’ll find it.”

“And then?” Jason pressed, “what use is it to know? We can’t do anything.”

Anger flared in Annabeth’s eyes and for a second Jason thought she was going to attack him too. But then her shoulders dropped and when she looked at him there was only disappointment in her eyes.

“Go away then,” she said, “if you truly believe it, leave. You came here to help but I don’t need you. Go back to your precious romans.”

“Oh maybe I will”, he answered getting up in a swift movement, anger he had previously ignored rising up. “At least they mourn their friends when they die and they don’t forget about it in a day”.

“I did not forget about Nico! Nor Hazel!” she yelled, forcefully closing the book she was holding. “But they’re dead, Jason. We can’t do anything for them. But there is someone we can do _something_ for, and it’s Percy. So, oh excuse me if now I’m gonna try do it.”

Jason sat down again and leaned his head on his hands, his body slightly trembling. “I’m sorry”, he said after a while, “I just…” he shook his head and sighed again.

“I never told you what I saw in my dreams at the end, did I?”

Annabeth shook her head. She had completely forgotten that Jason had had something to tell her and she had no idea how it had been possible. She had never, never just _forgotten_ something, especially not when it was this important.

“Well, I only saw some flashes but… what happened was quite clear. And-” he took a big breath and continued, trying to steaden his voice.

“Someone tried to steal the- the sea-cow, the one on Olympus. Ophiotaurus I think Thalia had called it?”

Annabeth nodded, not liking where this was going, and Jason continued.

“Well, my father realized what was going on and he got angry. I didn’t see him but- I felt his rage. I felt it inside me and- I heard a big thunder, huge enough to be heard all around the earth and then- then I think he tried to hit the thief with a lighting but-”

“But he hit the Ophiotaurus instead”, Annabeth concluded, almost in trance. Her mind was not wrapping itself around Jason’s story and she felt light, as if she was floating.

Jason nodded. “I read that burning its interiors gives the power to destroy the gods. There is no way that they didn’t burn after being hit by a lighting but… it wasn’t holy fire. And Zeus didn’t actually _want_ to destroy all of them. So I think it only kind of… half-worked, if it makes sense.”

“It didn’t destroy the gods but it took their powers away. Yes it-it makes sense but- gods”, she said, leaning her back to the wall, “That’s why he didn’t want my mother to tell me what had happened. Because it was his fault.”

“His and of whoever tried to steal the creature”, Jason corrected, and Annabeth glanced warily at him. “Are you really defending him?” she asked, and Jason sighed. Was he? He didn’t know what to think. Respect for his father had been engraved in him since an early age, but he hadn’t had problems in speaking against him in Greece. So what had changed now?

“It’s just not fair to only blame him”

Annabeth snorted. “As if he’s ever cared for fairness”, she said, and Jason wanted to argue that _he_ was the one who cared about it, but he just didn’t have the energy.

“Can we just stop arguing for a moment?” he asked instead, sitting down and taking one of the books he had brought, “I didn’t actually _see_ anything alright? Just some flashes and sensation. I’m not even sure _there was_ a thief. I’ll talk about it with Chiron later to know if he has any idea on who could have wanted the creature. But for now- for now let’s focus on this bloody Stone okay?”.

Annabeth nodded and they started reading, in a silence full of hope and sorrow but strangely comfortable.

There is a time for everything. But is there a time that has nothing?  
Probably not, for time doesn’t exist in the absence of someone capable to grasp its passing.  
But there were people and so it went on, unbothered.

~~~

“I know they’re like, evil spirits and everything, but they could really have left the torches on”, Percy complained, using his only lit one to turn on all of the others on the walls.

Elissa smiled, but she was beginning to feel the tiredness of everything that had happen in the last days. How could Percy still be this energetic? He had lit the last viewable torch, and was now turning back to her, to signal that the way was safe when suddenly he stopped.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, seeing her expression, and Elissa sighed in defeat. He was much observant than he let on, apparently. 

“I’m just tired”, she answered, “don’t worry. Corinth is big, but we should be able to walk from one side to the other in a couple of hours.”

“Which means that even if Mania is in the last place we look it still won’t take more than a day” Percy concluded. Then he nodded to himself and leaned on the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the sandy ground. Elissa looked at him questioningly, but he just smiled and gestured at her to do the same.

“Let’s rest for a couple of hours then”, he said, “who knows if we’ll be able to when we get out of here.”

He closed his eyes and Elissa did the same, trying to think of happy things: her favourite flowers, the cheerful sister she had had for a couple of years, the smile of the people when the harvest was good, the winter festivities at the palace, the kind eyes her father had had before her older brother had died. 

But it didn’t work, for she fell asleep with the haunting image of her mother’s screams and her father’s head rolling in the throne room.

And when she awoke again, everything was dark around her and Percy was nowhere to be seen.

~~~

Percy had been dreaming of a storm.

He had dreamed of being surrounded by an endlessly grey sky, with wind and rain pushing him towards something horrible, somewhere where he didn’t want to go. He remembered his panic, his fear, and waking up in cold sweat.

What he did not remember was, however, leaving the tunnels. And yet here he was, laying under a blazing sun, his whole body covered in brownish sand and his head the confusing maze of someone who has just woken up.

He stood up quickly, confused and looked around himself, trying to find the way back to the tunnel, but there was nothing: the desert went on endlessly around him, every mile identical to the other and the late morning sky seemed to laugh at him from above.

“No,no,no” Percy murmured, falling to his knees while his hands uselessly dug under the sand, searching for an hidden passage, a manhole, a secret door, something that could bring him back were Elissa was. But his hands only found sand and more sand, and at one point he was forced to stop, exhausted, the midday sun mercilessly burning his too sensitive skin and his eyes almost unable to see in the blinding light.

He heard someone laughing in the distance and swiftly got up on his feet with Riptide in his hand ready to attack, but there was no one around him. _It’s the heat,_ he thought. He had heard of people travelling through the desert and seeing oasis that weren’t there, lakes where there were only dunes, skulls taken for flowers. He had heard the tales and had pitied the survivors and understood the perished, but he had never imagined himself in the same situation: it was unwise after all, for a son of Poseidon to be this far away from a source of water. So why was he there?

He heard the laughing again and tried his best to ignore it. He needed to find his way back to Elissa: she must be thinking he had abandoned her. Was she afraid to be alone? Had the spirits found her again and decided they didn’t need help after all? He hoped not, and started walking in the direction his head had been pointing when he was on the ground, because it seemed likely he had come from that way, even if it was impossible to tell.

The laughing stopped after a while and it was substituted by the voice a woman, creepily similar to that of his mother, whispering in the air around him, uttering words of comfort and promising peace and sunny fields if only he managed to walk a step further, and then another, and then another.

Percy walked for what seemed miles, his feet following an imaginary path in the sand and his mind unable to formulate any coherent thought. Annabeth’s face flashed in front of his eyes a couple of times, but before he could grasp it it had been covered by colors and streams of light again and even his surroundings had at a certain point become insignificant: the only thing that mattered was to continue walking, because the voice was kind and the voice said so.

And after a few hours, the voice intimated him to stop, and Percy did. There was no more desert around him, but lushful fields and an happy stream passing through them, with nymphes chanting hymns to deities he did not know and children laughing somewhere behind the trees. A peaceful feeling suddenly overwhelmed him, and he could not remember what had made him so tense before. How could he not have enjoyed walking through such a paradise?

He sat down on the vividly green grass and even if the sun was at his highest point, he felt shivers pass through his body.

“Are you cold?” Elissa asked, graciously sitting in front of him, and Percy stared at her for a long time, before shaking his head. He had believed to be alone, but of course she had been with him. There was no reason why she shouldn’t have, so why did he have that impression?

He heard her voice again, but when he looked at her she had not spoken at all, and was instead tracing patterns on the grass with a stick. _The sun,_ the voice said, _the sun_ , but Percy had no idea what it meant. It had been easy to follow before, but this time it seemed different.

Elissa smiled at him from where she was sitting, and laughed joyously. “Thank you for bringing me here”, she said, “now that I know the way I can bring here Annabeth too. She would like to see you again, as do you, but-” she sighed and shook her head sadly, “oh nothing. Forget it.”

“What?” Percy asked, in trance, his brain stuck on the chance she has offered, “what do you need?” he asked, ready to sacrifice the world, ready to pour his own heart out.

_No_ , the not-Elissa’s voice said again in his ears, _the sun, the sun._

But the girl in front of him laughed again and shook her head again, her long hair dancing on her shoulders. “Why should she trust me?” she asked, “she would need something that she could recognize as yours to believe I’m leading her to you. Something that only you possess.”, she added, her tone lustful.

“The Stone.” Percy said, looking at Elissa with his eyes shining. “She’ll know I gave her to you!”

_NO!,_ not-Elissa said again, _look at the sun!_

“Oh wonderful!” the girl in front of him said again, “can you give it to me so I can go?”

_The sun,_ he heard again, and decided to look at it before taking his bag: the voice had helped him before after, all. When he looked up, there was nothing weird with it: it was still shining, high in the sky as when he had started walk-.

Oh.

Panic rose in his throat and his heart clenched uncomfortably in his chest. His feet hurt as if he had walked for hours, but the sun had not moved. How was that possible? He got up quickly under the girl’s surprised gaze, ignoring her stretched hand, and turned around just in time to see the water slowly disappear and the grass dying under his feet.

“What- what” he tried to ask, but he was too in shock to formulate a question.

“Stupid girl”, Elissa murmured in front of him, “I was so close!”, she yelled.

And then she snapped her fingers, and the world turned black.

~~~

_Poseidon had feared for his son.  
He did not think he would survive unscathed another war. A part of him wished to avoid him the pain of having to. Another selfish part wanted him to just be alive, whatever pain would it cause him to._

_(he had no time to decide which part he hated more, for his mind was stripped away from him)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally found out what made the gods lose their powers... had you anticipated that it was Zeus' fault or you had someone else in mind? Hope you weren't disappointed ahaha.
> 
> Anywayy I'm going on holiday and I won't have my laptop, so see you at the end of August and have a nice weekend!


	15. Chapter Fourteen

The world did not stay black for a long time.

Percy felt his body being half carried and half dragged on the sand and opened his eyes, trying to will his legs to take the burden of his own weight while drops of blood slowly tainted his tunic.

“What-” he tried to ask, but Elissa shushed him from somewhere behind him, her hand coming to cover his mouth. He tasted blood, dripping on his lips and he stopped, suddenly finding enough strength to stand up on his own and turn towards the girl, who was clutching a piece of broken glass in her other hand.

“What’s going on?” he whispered, inspecting the girl’s wound, which fortunately didn’t seem to be deep.

“When I woke up you weren’t there.” she murmured, her voice shaking, “I found this piece of glass at your place, and I could… I could see you walking in the tunnel, so I followed you but-” she held down a sob and continued.

“I thought you had abandoned me. That you wanted to go on by yourself but- but then you weren’t in the tunnels anymore. You were in some kind of desert and then in a field and there was a- a monstrous woman trying to make you give away the Stone and I tried to-” she stopped.

“You told me to look at the sun”

The girl nodded, a strange expression on her face. Was it relief? “I don’t think you ever left the tunnels”, she added, and Percy could do nothing but agree with her.

“We must be getting closer to Mania,” he answered, “she must have played with my mind to get the Stone.”

“Oh Percy I was so afraid!” she then exclaimed, and Percy looked at her funnily. “You were?” he asked, “I told you I’m not leaving without you. Come on”, he said, and started walking again, Elissa following him. He couldn’t stop thinking about how real his vision had seemed: the sand and then the grass, the distorted colours of the landscape and the sun that refused to move. How had Elissa noticed such a tiny detail?

“You know,” Elissa resumed after a while, interrupting his wonderings, “Mania had almost managed to get the Stone. Your mind was quite easy to manipulate apparently. I don’t think it’s safe, don’t you? Maybe it would be better if I carried it”.

Percy turned towards her, surprised: she was smiling, the smile of a child that has managed to get away with a well-thought plan, the smile of a criminal who refuses to repent, and Percy shivered, feeling colder than he thought possible.

“I don’t think that would be wise”, he answered, his pulse quickening in an instinctual response to the fear he refused to admit he was feeling. Elissa was harmless: she was small and had no training. If it came to it, he could take her out in an instant.

The girl chuckled. “You do think too much darling”, she said, her voice deeper, and suddenly her hands were at his neck and Percy found himself pressed against the wall with an extraordinary force.

Only then, he noted that all the torches were on. 

Elissa’s eyes turned golden, and she laughed the laugh of the winners and of the record-breakers, the laugh of the untouchable.

“Mania”, Percy muttered with the little voice he had left. The hands on his neck held him tightly, but not enough to restrain him totally and Percy kicked her with all of his strength, every part of his body fighting against the well-known sensation of suffocating.. 

But his legs passed through Elissa’s body as if it was made of air, as if it didn’t exist, and panic filled his head. He tried to move the hands away from his neck, to break their grasps but he couldn’t even touch them and when his desperate eyes looked at Elissa again, he saw the furious face of his father at her place.

“No”, he worded without voice, “not again, please, no”, he begged.

His father just laughed. “Do you think I would have forgiven you so easily? You are _nothing_ to me”

“No, no” he had started to cry now, hot and messy tears that run through his cheeks and fell on the floor, passing through the arms of his father as if he wasn’t there.

_Because he’s not real_ , he found himself thinking, _he’s in my mind. Everything is in my mind._

He let the thought flow through his body as if it was blood, until every cell of his being believed in it, until there was no more empty space for doubt to creep in. And then-

-then he took his own hands away from his neck and fell on his knees, coughing and breathing, finally breathing. He slowly raised a hand to his mouth, where he could still feel the taste of blood and discovered that is lip was reduced to shreds: he must have had bitten it during his fight with himself. He then checked his bag and felt the comfortable weight of the Stone on his hand. _Thank gods._

“Oh, you took your sweet time” said a voice in front of him and Percy looked up, still short of breath, and paled, his previous relief disappearing at once.

Elissa- the real one this time- was sitting on a wooden stool, her hands tied and a knife on her neck. She looked impossibly young, and even if he noted that she had been crying, there was no trace of fear in her eyes, which looked at Percy trustingly as if to say _I know you’re gonna save me._

Percy swallowed and forced his eyes to look behind her, where the Mist was trying to cover up the figure of a beautiful, dark-skinned and dark-haired woman with the smile of a predator who has found a new toy.

She pressed the knife closer to the princess’ throat, and smiled even more when Elissa gulped, her feet pressing on the ground with all her weight as if she was ready to dart away.

“You know what I want.” she said, “Give it to me and I’ll let her go.”

Percy tightened his grip on the sword. He needed time to think of a plan. Phthónos had asked him to free her, but she wasn’t in any cage: so, what had he meant? Mania wanted the Stone for something, maybe to free herself: if that was the case maybe he could find a way to do so without the help of the Stone.

“I can’t,” he answered, “but if you let my friend go, I’ll free you”.

Mania started laughing, without joy nor humour, and Percy got reminded of Chris before Mr. D had healed him. She was the spirit of insanity, of course she was mad, but for some strange reason the realization hadn’t occurred to him until that moment.

“Oh you’ve met my friends then”, she snickered, while Percy tried to grasp what was so funny about it. Did she not want to be free? He would have taken any opportunity to just get home, to be able to hold Annabeth in his arms again. 

But before he could arrive to an explanation, the spirit continued talking, slowly caressing Elissa’s hair. “I’ll tell you a secret before killing you and your companion here, just because I hadn’t had this fun in ages”, she whispered.

Elissa trembled against the blade, but Percy could see her arms moving behind her back. _The dagger,_ he remembered, and a flicker of hope passed through his heart.

“You know, no one comes here anymore. We are all hungry, us spirits. But the ones you met are luckier than me. Sorrow, pain and envy… they can feed of basically every being. But madness? Only humans can be mad. And so, when they find some, they gift them to me.”

She smiled again, showing all of her teeth, and Percy felt like a deer that had accidentally stumbled in a lion’s den. Elissa was still slightly moving, trying to cut herself free. He needed more time.

“That’s an amazing plan,” he started, trying to seem impressed, “were you the one to suggest that the other spirits could lead mortals to you via trickstery? Marvellous. And even the design of the cave.... the torches and all of that...very clever.”

“They make a fantastic atmosphere. And people start to question their sanity when they first turn on! It’s so funny!”

“Yes, hilarious,” he answered, trying to urge Elissa to be quicker, “and those hallucinations you gave me! I had never seen anything so well done”.

“Oh I am very proud of them. And people always believe them. You would have too, hadn’t this-” she paused and caressed Elissa’s hair with her other hand “-stupid girl interrupted my work”, she concluded, gripping tightly her long locks, and Elissa’s expression turned into one of discomfort.

“Yes you would have surely managed hadn’t it been for her. So that you could use the Stone for…to get out of here?” he guessed, wishing that Mania would take the bait.

“Get out of here? Oh not only that darling. I-” she paused, removing her hands from Elissa’s hair and raising them to the ceiling, “-I will become a goddess. The greatest of all them!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, of course, of course”, Percy laughed, “silly me.” He looked at the princess again, and she nodded, teeth tightly pressed together. 

It was time to get out of there.

~~~

_Demeter loved every plant, every field and every flower. She cared for them and for the gentle mortals who tended to them. They were her children and her army, and she knew well enough what the absence of light would do to them._

_(her only consolation was that she wouldn’t be goddess enough to feel their death anymore)_

~~~

Three days after Annabeth had stabbed Chiron, the now mortal gods arrived to Camp.

Four days after Annabeth had stabbed Chiron, Jason asked his father for an explanation. None was given and every responsibility was avoided.

Five days after Annabeth had stabbed Chiron, they all sat down around the ping pong table to discuss how to proceed. The gods voted to risk Percy’s soul. The demigods voted for action. Chiron sighed and sided with them.

Two more days later, they had found a way to contact Percy in his dreams.

~~~

_Hephaestus held no love for the gods. He held no love for the mortals either. He only loved what they could create, the fruit of their hands and of their minds. The machines and their usage. But not the people, never the people._

_(or so he had convinced himself)  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back!!  
> How did your holidays go? Mine were great!!  
> Uptadates will be a bit irregular from now on and my one chapter per week schedule will suffer... but I'll do my best to update as soon as I can. Many things still need to happen and I have no intention of abandoning this story!!


	16. Chapter Fifteen

When Percy had first accepted to retrieve the Stone, he had known that it was going to be a dangerous mission: first of all he was in a foreign country, with different rules and different kinds of people. Second, there was the possibility he would have to spend his nights out in the desert, where the nights were cold and the animals lethal. Third of course, he knew he would find monsters. 

What he had not anticipated was however, that he was not going to do all of this alone.

Elissa moved her dagger in the air in front of her, attacking the spirit without an ounce of technic nor plan, and her hits were entirely fueled by her unashamedly mortal need to survive, that for now was managing to let her avoid all of the spirit’s unpredictable blows.

Mania in fact kept appearing and disappearing all around them, sometimes projecting her image in two or three differents spots, so to be impossible to tell where exactly she was and while Percy would have liked to state differently, his fighting style was not so dissimilar from the princess’ one. He swung Riptide all around him, his eye-hand coordination too slow to be able to successfully hit the spirit and keep Elissa relatively safe at the same time.

“We need a plan!” he yelled after a couple of minutes, when it had become clear that Mania was just toying with them. 

“You’re the hero one! Think of something!” she yelled back, throwing herself to the ground to avoid a particularly well-aimed blow that would have killed her on the spot.

Percy cursed and ran to her, then placing himself between the girl and Mania, his sword faintly glowing in his hands and raised in a defensive stance. Small columns of water slowly climbed around his legs and became bigger and bigger, until they shielded them completely from the-now-pissed Mania.

“What are you doing?” Elissa asked, almost indignantly.

“You told me to think of something! I can’t think if she keeps trying to kill us!”

“You’re- you’re…. oh gods can’t you just throw all of this water at her? Drown her or something?”

Percy bit his lower lip and sighed. “It’s not that easy,” he said through gritted teeth, “the pressure of the water on the ceiling and on the walls could make all of the structure collapse, and we’d suffocate under tons and tons of dirt and rubble. No we need-oh.”

“What?” 

“Elissa, Elissa she’s playing with our minds okay?” he said, turning to look at her, ”with what we’re seeing. She can’t change where we are or anything else, but only our perception of our surroundings, so-”

“-so we need to not see.” she concluded for him, and then nodded to herself and tore the end of her chiton under the demigod’s questioning glare.

“Put this on your eyes”, she said, handing it to Percy, “so you won’t be tempted to use your sight. Just try to follow your instincts and not to die. You have a promise to keep after all.”

Percy smiled. “Be careful” he said, and then the water disappeared as quickly as it had come and Percy lunged forward, towards the spirit and towards a battle that could not be lost.

 

~~~

_“Annabeth you need to understand-”_

_“No! No! Mother I love him. I love him. I need to know what could happen.”_

_Athena sighed, her shoulders dropping and revealing a profound tiredness that Annabeth had no time nor mercy to feel sorry for._

_“The Stone will not create our powers. It will restore them, it will take the energy, the power from him and give it to us so that we can be gods again. This is the price he will have to pay.”_

_“But Percy doesn’t have all of your powers. I don’t- I don’t understand.”_

_Athena hesitated, then yielded. “The Stone will feed of everything Percy is. Of everything he has ever been. Every thought, every action, every hope, every fear. It will tear them away from his mind, one after the other and when everything that makes him himself will be gone it will take everything that is Percy not for himself but for everyone else. Every memory we all have for him will cease to exist. Everything that we have learnt from him will be forgotten. Every mention of his name will disappear from the world.”_

_Annabeth felt as if her heart had stopped beating. She couldn’t live in a world where he had never existed. She didn’t want to._

_“We need to- we need to-”, she started, “we need to tell him. That he can’t risk. That he can’t use it. He can’t- he can’t be sure that getting you your powers back is really is greatest desire. He can’t. He won’t. He will never be certain. We can’t risk.”_

_Athena stared at her, gaze hard but not unkind._

_“Would you really sacrifice every living creature for a man whose absence you would never be able to miss?”_

~~~

Elissa had never been great at waiting. It seemed like it was all that had been expecting from her- wait for your brother to return from the war, wait for your father to find you a husband, wait for the right time to have children. 

Wait for someone to rescue you.

She pressed herself against the tunnel’s wall, observing Percy fighting with the spirit, his mouth set in hard line and all of his muscles tensed and ready to throw themselves were his instinct told them. In a way, she envied him. His freedom, his ability to defend himself, the fast way in which he made everyone, including her and her father, trust him without even trying. But most importantly, she envied his powers- the ability to have the seas at his command, the way talking about it made him carefree and happy, the fact that he possessed a safe place to return to even when he was far away from home.

In other ways, she did not envy him. It was particularly difficult to do so while he was being thrown around by a pissed off spirit while managing to land only a couple of blows that had not actually damaged the spirit in any way.

“Shit, shit”, he heard him say, when his last attack proved unsuccessful. “Elissa this is not working. We need to-” he moved quickly to the right, avoiding Mania’s dagger, “-to get away.”

“How?” she asked, because the tunnels were long and she had no idea of where the exit was anymore. Mania had entered her mind while she was sleeping and dragged her through mountains and rivers and made her see how she was manipulating Percy. She had screamed at him and cried trying to let him understand it was not real. It had worked and she had no idea how, nor how she had come to sit on that stool. But she knew she had to do something. To try to rescue herself this time, and maybe Percy too.

“Maybe your idea of before could be _partly_ used”, he stated, blocking Mania’s attack one by one with a practiced ease betrayed only by his ragged breath. “Where is the exit?” he then asked, “right or left?”

“I don’t know”, she admitted and she heard him curse in a language that sounded nothing like the ones the merchants spoke, like persian or hebrew and that surely wasn’t geek. She couldn’t avoid wondering again from where he came from, for even if his greek was good it was clear he had not been speaking it all his life.

“I hope we’ll be lucky then” he said, and before she could ask him what he meant Percy took off his blindfold and run to her, distancing himself from the spirit as much as he could and shooting a blast of water on the ceiling between them and Mania.

“NO!” she yelled, trying to move forward. But it was too late: the ceiling beams cracked and fell on the ground, bringing with them all the sand and rocks they had kept secured until them and burying the still-screaming spirit.

“Oh gods this was so… so tiring”, said Percy, leaning on the wall, but Elissa could not let him rest. The beams had not stopped cracking and rifts were spreading all across the ceiling, getting larger and larger while grains of sand started to fall.

“Percy we need to go away” she commanded, shaking his arm. In all response the boy closed his eyes and leaned further into the wall.

“Just let me rest for a minute”, he mumbled, but there was no time.

“WE NEED TO RUN!” she yelled, taking his arm and tugging until he reluctantly started to follow her.

“Elissa calm down we have all the time for-”

Another beam fell down, a foot to his right and he startled, his eyes darting to hers. For a split of a second, nothing happened.

Then the entire tunnel’s structure started to crumble.

“Oh gods” he said, while Elissa took his hand in hers, “I think that we _do_ need to run.”

So they did, wandering in their search for the exit and a ladder that could bring them up, with hope as their only guide. And for how much the situation could seem desperate, Elissa could not avoid feeling happiness bubble in her chest.

She was alive. Unstoppable. Undefeated. 

She was _free_. 

 

~~~

_Ares was the god of war. When it thundered, he was excited by the idea of a battle, of a scuffle between his family members. By the idea of fighting.  
But when the lighting came, he surrendered._

_(he knew after all, how to recognise a defeat)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> As always thank you to everyone who shows interest in this story, and if you have any questions feel free to ask them! I'll try to answer without spoiler of course.  
> Have a nice weekend!


	17. Chapter Sixteen

They ran and ran and ran in the sandy tunnel, fueled by the fear of the dirt and rocks that were collapsing behind them and determined to make it out alive. Percy held tightly on Elissa, turning every now and then to check that she was alright even if he was the one in the worst condition: the fight with the spirit had exhausted him and the stress and fear of all the past days had started to caught up on him. 

He could not stop thinking about his friends in New York, stuck in an everlasting darkness he was being too slow to end but also about his father’s words. _Two people have been sacrificed in your name,_ he had said and while he had been too overwhelmed to inquire more in the moment, now he feared the meaning it could have had. Were them someone he knew? Someone he cared about? For them to sacrifice themselves meant that at least they knew his name, and he probably knew their too. What was he going to tell their families? How could he show up in Camp again knowing that he was there only because two others weren’t?

“Look there!” screamed then the princess, interrupting his thoughts, “there is a ladder! Come on, come on let’s get out!”

Percy let himself be led towards it. Elissa was still talking but he could not make out her words under the constant buzzing of his brain, that was becoming louder and louder every second. He felt panic rise from his stomach, hot and dry passing through his body and leaving only emptiness behind, scarring the flesh not with pain but with loss. _Breathe,_ he reminded himself, _just breathe._ He could see Will’s face in front of him, muttering calming words of reassurance while Annabeth held his hands. Annabeth, Annabeth, oh gods was she okay? Why had he not called her before leaving? Why was he so-

“Percy please I can’t- I can’t open it. Percy pl- AH!”

Elissa cried out in pain and fell from the ladder, where one of the steps had crashed under her weight, and while he was sorry she had hurt herself he was also grateful for the fact that her scream had seemed to make his brain finally shut the fuck up.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, helping her getting up again and inspecting the ladder, whose wood was rotten to the point of being almost unusable.

She shook her head. “I just want to get out of here”, she said with a soft voice, and Percy could do nothing but agree. He carefully climbed the ladder and found himself staring at a manhole identical to the one from which they had entered the tunnel. He swallowed down the fear of still being in the center of the city and pushed with all of his strength.

The manhole opened and the light of the sun entered the tunnel, momentainerly blinding both of them, whose eyes had been accustomed to the darkness. He looked at Elissa, and when she nodded, he lifted himself out of the tunnel and into the light, praying to find himself out of the city.

Maybe the Fates were tired, maybe the gods had helped them, maybe it was just his lucky day. Maybe returning home was his destiny, for he found himself in the plain desert, Corinth slightly visible behind him. 

And for how much he was happy to have left the city, its sight filled his heart just as much as it had done the first time, when he had stared at the city in awe of how much things had changed and of how much they had not changed at all.  
Maybe no one inside would ever realize what had happened, that what he had done would save their descendents thousand of years later, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered apart from the Stone in his bag. Nothing mattered apart from returning home.

Apart from Elissa.

~~~

“Leo are you sure _this_ is what we need?” Jason asked, skeptical, staring at the little, colorful disk in his hands.

“They said we need to _catch_ Percy’s dreams before we can enter in them. And what better than a dreamcatcher to catch dreams?”

“Please stop repeating those words” he muttered, inspecting the seemly harmless device.

“Which words? Dream? Catch? Dreamcatcher? Catcher of dreams? All hail Jason Grace the one who catches dreams?”

Jason smiled, shaking his head with pretended annoyance. “Annabeth will murder me when she finds out that I’ll be the one to go and not her.”

“Well man”, answered Leo with a gentle pack on his back, “she’ll realize it’s for the best. Letting her go would just make things more difficult for everyone involved.”

He was right and Jason knew it, but it didn’t make the situation any easier. She hadn’t spent weeks trying to find a way to contact him, challenging gods and forcing Chiron to give uncomfortable answers only to be excluded by the actual final project. But Percy needed to wish for the gods to get their powers back and not for Annabeth, and Chiron was concerned that seeing her would just make his desire to come back greater and thus indirectly make his quest fail. And that couldn’t happen of course, both for Percy’s and for the world’s sake.

He took a big breath and tightened his grip on the dreamcatcher, identical to the ones in Piper’s room if not for the fact that it had been forged in celestial bronze.

“Come on Leo,” he started, “let’s go break the news to her.”

~~~

It took three, exhausting hours to make Annabeth accept it. 

They had argued, argued and argued until Chiron, exasperated had taken Leo’s creation in his hand and threatened that or Jason went or it would be destroyed and nothing would come out from the gods’ advice.

She had glared daggers at all of them, but she had relented, and now Jason kind of wished she hadn’t. He was laying in one of the Great House’s beds, with Annabeth looking at him like a hawk and Chiron constantly shifting between staring at him and at his watch. The dreamcatcher was hanging from the ceiling above him, swinging placidly unaware of all the expectations that were placed on him.   
( _Jason envied it, for he instead was particularly aware of the ones he had)_

“So…” he started, trying to break the uncomfortable silence.

“So, as soon as Percy dreams that thing should be able to catch it and let you communicate with him. You must tell him he can’t use the Stone. The risk is too great and-”

“Annabeth my dear he knows. You’ve repeated it a billion times”, Chiron interjected, staring at Jason with an hard expression, and he sighed. He knew what he had to do: tell Percy that he needed to wish for the gods to be back, and be careful because there could be _unknown_ risks. No mention of the real consequences. And then he was to tell Annabeth he had told him not to use it, and if things went wrong… well, none of them would remember what had happened nor why.

The order was clear and simple, and Jason loathed it. He had grown up being told to follow instructions, but this time he didn’t know if he would manage. He would only feel the guilt if everything went well, but Annabeth was going to know he had lied. Percy would come to know he had risked his soul without as much as a second thought. Or a third. He did not know whether or not he could manage it, but the other option wasn’t good either. How could Percy find _something else_ to give hundreds of gods their powers back? He would die in the search and they would never know. At least with the first option there was a grain of hope to cling to, or maybe that was just what he was telling himself to feel less guilty.

The dreamcatcher started to swing faster and faster, and Jason closed his eyes with the image of a hundred of colours just behind them.

~~~

_Laughter filled the void.  
Then screams covered it._

_Had he opened his eyes he would have seen a young Percy in his mother’s kitchen, baking cookies with the joy only a child can have._

_But his eyes remained closed, and the only thing he saw was darkness._

~~~

He awoke with a gasp, and shook his head under Annabeth scrutiny. 

“We’ll just have to try again,” she sighed, while Chiron scribbled something, and Jason swallowed harshly.

Was it selfish for him to never wanting to do that again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys!  
> Are you excited about what's going to happen next? I am!  
> Have a nice weekend!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, and feel free to tell me of any spelling or grammar mistakes I may have made.  
> English is not my first language but I'm trying my best!!


End file.
